Avada Kedavra and Rise Again
by KDCampbell
Summary: Dramione. Hermione finds herself stuck in the middle of the zombie apocalypse with none other than Draco Malfoy, the last person she ever wanted to watch her back. Warning: Character deaths.
1. Prologue

Prologue: A Late Night at the Ministry of Magic

The ministry worker was at his wit's end as he finally packed his bags together. He looked despairingly at his wrist watch. It was going onto eleven PM! His wife would be livid he had been forced to stay so late, yet again. He was really starting to regret his 'promotion' to The Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee. He was sure the last sap probably left due to the long hours and ever growing list of confounding problems they were forced to solve.

For example, just earlier that evening before he was about to slip out at his scheduled hour of six o'clock PM sharp to be home in time for his wife's roast hog, news came in of a young wizard that had tied up the Accidental Magic Department for several hours earlier that day when a muggle school's washroom was blown to smithereens.

The young wizard child had apparently been distressed when he had somehow given himself a pig snout, creating hours of work for the Obliviators and endless paperwork still stacked on his own desk.

It was a rather tricky situation, as hysteria among the muggles had broken out about terrorists, that tragic event happening among their community over in the United States a few years back. Muggle parents had run to the school, stealing their children back home thinking the school had been under attack. This, of course, made quite the mess for the ministry worker and their three departments, running around to all the homes masquerading as various different sales people so they could erase the children's memories of the pig's snout on the young boy.

For those that hadn't been directly exposed, the story was that the child was coming into puberty a tad early and had a rather large bulbous pimple on his nose. The explosion was a bit more tricky, however, they had woven a satisfactory tale involving faulty wiring and bad electrical work. As it was, the school was already preparing a lawsuit against a rather confused electrical company. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best they could do, for any explosions around young children were rather sensitive and hard cases.

The muggle parents of the young muggle-born child had of course been informed of their child's magical needs. They had decided to withdraw him from his muggle school until the next year when he would likely be sent a letter from Hogwarts, in order to prevent any further incidents.

"All parents of muggle born children should be informed early on in order to prevent this kind of mess!" the wizard muttered to himself, shuffling the papers in his bag that he had to take home with him. Thank Merlin for bottomless bags that felt light as air, for he had several rolls of parchment in there.

He proceeded down towards the lift, sighing heavily with weariness. He really hoped his wife had saved him pot roast. He winced, thinking of the ear full he was going to get after she had likely spent so much time preparing the dinner for their Friday evening together. It had been ruined yet again by a poor neglected muggle-born child that had no idea what he was.

As he entered the lift, a hand reached out to the door, stopping it before it could close. Startled, the ministry worker peeked his head out the corner to see who it was.

"Ah, Arthur, here late tonight as well are you?"

The red-headed Weasley was still a moment, unnerving the ministry worker until he responded.

"Yeah, had a bit of an incident up on my floor. Had a lot of work to catch up on before I have the next week off."

"A whole week!" The ministry worker exclaimed, watching as Arthur walked into the elevator. He was limping slightly.

The door closed, causing the lift to lurch forward sharply as it started its complex navigation between the Ministry floors, taking them both to the main level of the Ministry of Magic.

"Yes, my son is getting married next week, The whole family will be there."

"To the Granger girl right?" the ministry worker asked, nodding along. Arthur's eyes had become a bit brighter talking about his son, the long list of his responsibilities getting pushed to the back of his mind with the prospect of his son's matrimony and the consequential week long vacation.

The ministry worker felt a trickle of envy leak into his polite smile as he faced forward, watching as the various floors zipped past. He felt a slight pop in his ears a moment of weightlessness as the descended quickly.

"Hermione Granger, how he managed to catch her eye still boggles my mind. I mean, I love Ronald but that woman is smart as a whip, she is. Will be great one day – Merlin, I wouldn't be surprised if she was the minister one day!"

"Yes, close with that Potter too, right? I suppose he will be at the wedding?"

The minister pursed his lips, barely hiding the contempt there. It was well known that Ron Weasley and Harry Potter were the new blood in the Auror department, spouting new ideas left right and center. And that Hermione Granger now was another story altogether, she had already slipped right into a prime position in Magical Law Enforcement. The young wizards and witch had only been out of Hogwarts for five years and were already bypassing himself and the senior Weasley, moving up in the ministry ranks. However, it seemed Arthur did not share the ministry workers negative feelings, as he smiled with pride as he spoke of his youngest son and his friends.

"Yes, rumor has it half the ministry might all be there, along with Hogwarts's new Headmistress, McGonagall."

The minister worker grunted, happy to see the lift coming to a stop. He was ready to leave Arthur far behind him - he was bordering on bragging at this rate. Quite full of himself, that man was.

"Brilliant," he said weakly, the enthusiasm not really in his voice.

The doors to the lift opened, and the ministry worker nearly bolted out of the door, his briefcase held to his chest as if he were entering the usually busy Entrance Room. However, he quickly dropped it to his side as he realized he looked like a fool for the room was quite empty.

Well, with a few exceptions.

Bloody brilliant, the ministry worker thought to himself as he saw a familiar figure off in the distance, glad for the excuse to leave the Weasley fellow far behind him. "That there is Mimsey, I need to have a word with him before I leave. Good evening to you Arthur, best of luck with the wedding," he said giving a departing nod to the red-head.

Arthur squinted towards where Mimsey was standing in the shadows. He was hunched over something on the ground that they couldn't quite see.

"He alright? Is a little bit odd, isn't it? Hovering over the ground like that."

He did, in fact, look a little curious, and there was a wet gurgling noise coming from him as if he were slurping up a dish of particularly tasty spaghetti.

"Colin? You alright there?"

Mimsey stood up, the motion somewhat lurching and stiff. The ministry worker looked at him concerned and started moving closer to him.

"Colin?"

He reached him, placing a hand on Mimsey's shoulder, as the man remained silent, a faint gurgle coming from him. He now could see what his colleague had been looking at on the ground, and felt himself get sick to his stomach as he froze in horror.

There on the floor was a witch, her entire abdomen sliced open, the gaping hole a mess of her intestines as they leaked out over the floor, a puddle of blood surrounding her. As his eyes rose to her face he saw that her eyes were still open, her lips forming words as she breathed her dying breaths.

The ministry worker realized just as her eyes blanked over, the life leaving her body what she had been trying to say.

" _Run_."

But, it was already too late, because as his eyes turned to his friend - who he still was gripping by the shoulder - it was only to look into the blood dripping face of a monster. Mimsey's eyes had gone a dull lifeless grey and he gripped him tightly by the wrist as he turned into him.

The last thing the ministry worker heard was Arthur Weasley's frantic cries as he started shouting various spells at Mimsey. However, it was to no effect as the dead wizard turned his blood soaked mouth on him, biting down on the ministry worker's throat, and ripping it from his neck in a single bite. Blood gurgled in his throat as he desperately gasped for air, his gasps growing shorter and shorter. As pain ripped through his body, the ministry worker wished he had just left at six and had roast hog with his wife.

However, his wife would never see him that night, and by the time Molly Weasley saw Arthur, it was far too late.


	2. Chapter 1: The Burrow

Chapter 1

Hermione woke up to find the bed next to her empty. She squinted her eyes and looked over to see what time it was. The room was still quite dark, but she could faintly make out that it was three-thirty AM.

Where did that wanker bugger off to? Hermione thought grumpily, as she sat up in bed, blearily blinking the sleep out of her eyes. She stretched and slid out of bed, the ground was chilly even though she was settled in the Weasley's Burrow, the final days of preparation for her wedding with Ron underway.

Hermione cringed and stepped into some cozy slippers with thick soles, and stepped out of bed in her pajama pants and an old tee-shirt. Now awake and nosy as to where her fiancé had gone in the middle of the night, Hermione set out of bed to go grab a glass of water in the Weasley's kitchen.

No one else had arrived yet for the wedding, so the house was only filled with herself, Ron, his parents, and Ginny who had arrived before Harry. Fleur and Bill were expected later that day, with the other Weasleys and Harry arriving later that week. The Wedding was set for a week from that day – and Hermione found herself feeling nervous and antsy just thinking of it.

Hermione had always wanted a smaller more quaint affair, but Molly had gone and invited several guests, and many had RSVPed promptly, eager to witness the joyous occasion. Hermione didn't like the thought of having a large audience as Ron and she exchanged their vows, however knowing the day would finally come after years of their rocky relationship had Hermione feeling high on bliss. Ron was the love of her life – regardless of their problems. With him, she just could never turn away.

Surprised at the October chill seeping in through the walls of the usually warm Weasley home, Hermione grabbed a sweater of Ron's off of where it had been discarded on the end of his bed. It said 'Gryffindor" in big gold and red lettering across the front. Though it was snug on him, it fit Hermione loosely, and snuggled into is relishing in his smell. A hint of his aftershave mixed with the vanilla scent Molly usually had in the house. On an afterthought, knowing a witch or wizard should never be parted from their wand, grabbed her hers and placed it in the large pocket of the hooded sweatshirt.

She padded into the hallways which were unusually dark, the Weasley home even in the dead of night always showing signs of life. Hermione frowned and crossed the hall, turning on the lights in the bathroom. She hit the switch but no light appeared. Hermione glanced around the small space confused, not sure how the power could go out in a magically charmed wizard home.

Feeling uneasy, she headed down the hall towards the stairs. The floor boards creaked loudly under her feet, the house seeming to tilt under her feet. Unbalanced, Hermione braced herself against the wall and placed her hand in her pocket and gripped her want. She pulled it out, not comfortable in the darkness, even though she knew her mind was likely playing a trick on her.

"Lumos," Hermione whispered, the cautious part of her brain warning her that something wasn't right. Her want lit up with a dull light, lighting the area around her in its blueish glow. Hermione's heart started to beat quicker in her chest and a heavy weight in her stomach left her feeling on edge.

Quietly Hermione passed Ginny's open door and she peered inside, her room too was empty. Hermione frowned, wondering what had all the Weasley's abandoning their beds in the middle of the night. She continued on, reaching the top of the staircase. Hermione looked down it dubiously, again getting the sensation that she was tilting. The Burrow creaked and groaned as if its lopsided architecture was catching up with it.

Hermione took slow steps down the stairs, a tingle running up her spine. The shadows in the darkened wizarding home seemed the gather at the edges as if moving as she walked by, reaching for her with their dark tendril-like fingers.

You are just being paranoid, Hermione told herself silently as she descended the staircase. Her steps were soft and silent as she went, the soft cushioning of her slippers quieting her steps as she lowered herself down the stairs. Feeling a bit silly, Hermione stood tall once she reached the bottom, looking around at the lifeless house.

A clatter sounded in the kitchen, and Hermione felt relief as she walked towards it. The lights weren't one, but since for some strange glitch in wizarding magic none of the lights were, Hermione didn't think much of it as she walked through the lifeless house.

Entering the large and cozy Weasley Kitchen, Hermione was again struck with a chill and rubbed her arms over herself. She looked around, not spotting anyone at first, and thinking the sound had just been a figment of her imagination. She turned to go eager to find Ron, but as she spun around she spotted a flash of tell-tale Weasley red hair in the corner of her eye. She turned again and saw that behind the table through the door of the kitchen, she could see what looked to be Molly's curly red locks spread out on the floor.

Feeling alarmed, Hermione put out the light in her wand, cloaking the space around her in darkness. She crept forward carefully, a stupefy spell at the ready as she crept through the kitchen, listening carefully as she heard Molly's quiet moans coming from the room before her.

A mixture of terror and anger jolted through Hermione, as she was afraid she was too late to stop Molly's attacker and angry that whoever it was would target her soon to be mother-in-law and her family. Even though the Second Wizarding War was over, Harry, Hermione, and Ron and their families still had a revenue of dangerous enemies.

Unable to listen to Molly in pain, Hermione burst around the corner in an uncharacteristic show of impulsivity as the desire to protect those that she loves overpowered her logic. She froze, horror filling her at the macabre sight in front of her.

Molly was splayed out on the ground in a puddle of her fresh gushing blood as Ron leaned over her, pulling large chunks of flesh with his teeth. He was slurping and gurgling as the blood pulsed from the wound at her shoulder. Molly's skin was grey-tinged as she lay they, her eyes rolling helplessly towards Hermione where she stood, unable to comprehend the sight in front of her.

"Run," whispered Molly, her voice low and weak as she took her final breaths. As Hermione stood there -- still motionless, she watched the light leave Molly's eyes and her body slump, lifeless as her son feasted on her still-warm body.

Hermione stumbled back, her eyes glued to the spectacle before her.

This is a dream, a horrific and terrifying night terror, Hermione told herself as she watched Ron's eyes lift from his mother's neck, strings of tendons and gore hanging from his lips and running along his freckled face. His eyes looked at her, unseeing, the iris's grey and murky and absent of their usual color.

He stood, and Hermione saw the large wound in his stomach, the material of his white shirt ripped and covered in blood, parts of his innards exposed.

"Ron?" Hermione croaked, moving backward as he started towards her, taking slow shuffling steps as he stumbled over his mother's body where it was on the floor. Hermione barely held back a scream at seeing her soon to be husband, a mess of gore and blood advancing towards her, the character of a muggle horror.

She heard a gurgle and a clang behind her, and just in time she skittered away as Ginny stumbled out of the kitchen towards her, her chocolate colored eyes were dead and lifeless just like her brothers. Hermione was trembling uncontrollably as she looked at two of some of the dearest people in her life walking towards her with lifeless eyes, blood soaking their skin and chest.

"No, this is a dream. A very bad and horrible dream," Hermione mumbled as she backed away from the two approaching figures. Part of Ginny's head was caved in, her red hair matted with blood as it soaked the side of her, her bare skull cracked and exposed. Hermione was shaking violently, her usually sharp mind unable to process what was happening.

Hermione was a smart girl – top of her year at Hogwarts. She had gotten her best friend Harry, and her now fiancé Ron out of several sticky situations. However, Hermione couldn't think of one thing to help her deal with the situation she faced now. She couldn't think of anything at all.

Tears started to run down Hermione's cheeks as Ron – or the creature that looked like her beloved got closer and closer. Realized her wand was still in her hand, Hermione shook her head to try to clear it, and pulled the first spell out of her mind she could think of. She didn't want to hurt them fatally – whatever possessed them surely could be corrected.

"Stupefy," she whispered, the power in her voice lost to her torrent of tears. The spell, red and weak shot from her wand, hitting him in the chest. He fell on the ground, however having heard Hermione speak, Ginny's macabre doppelganger lunged for her, her teeth snapping in an effort to tear into Hermione's outstretched arm. Hermione gave out a startled cry and backed away some more, her back hitting the wall behind her.

"Stupefy!" Hermione shouted, her fear overtaking her as Ginny made to attack her again. The spell hit Ginny and she fell. Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and looked around the room.

Ron was one his feet again and far too close to her.

"Stupefy!" Hermione cried out hysterically. The spell hit him again, stronger than the one she had shot him with before, but this time he just absorbed it, the only indication it hit him was that he staggered backward. Horrified Hermione watched as he advanced towards her again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ginny rise again from where she had fallen, and start moving towards her as well.

Magic wasn't working, desperately Hermione tried to rack her overfilled mind for another spell that might work and stop Ginny and Ron's horrific twins from attacking her like Ron had attacked his mother.

Her heart racing in her chest, Hermione managed to pull another spell from her arsenal of combative magic.

"Petrificus Totalus," yelled Hermione, with Ginny and Ron just feet away from her. She aimed it Ron, who was closer to her. Again it hit him, and he staggered but was otherwise unaffected by her charm.

Tears filled her eyes as she realized she would have to use a more offensive charm. She didn't want to hurt Ron or Ginny, but whatever these two creatures were before her – they were not the same people that she loved. Not anymore.

With a whisper, Hermione uttered those forbidden words.

"Avada Kedavra."

The spell hit Ron, her beautiful and handsome fiancé. The man she had planned to spend the rest of her life with. The spell shot readily from her wand as if it had been anticipating her decision. He fell to the ground motionless.

Tears running down her face, Hermione turned to Ginny who was just a foot away from her now, he hands reaching out to her with blood crusted fingertips, her eyes misty and grey, gore hanging in chunks from her bashed in skull.

"Avada Kedavra."

Hermione wanted to collapse and cry, but whatever had done this – whoever had caused this terrible incident that Hermione knew she would never forget, could still be around. Hermione turned to leave, reaching the door of the dining area, passing Ron's lifeless body.

She took a moment to stare at him, tears running in a torrent down her face, her heart beating rapidly, and heart swelling with grief and horror. For a moment she considered placing a kiss on his forehead, and she took a step towards him.

With a deep rattling gurgle, his head turned towards her, his foggy eyes meeting hers. His arm reached out, and grabbed her leg, his grip hard and bruising through the leg of her thin pajama pants. Horrified, Hermione kicked and screamed as his head moved down snapping at her leg. Her hand reached to her side searching for something, anything. Her fingers brushed the chair of the table beside them and she grabbed it and with all the power she could with one arm the threw it towards Ron's undead form, the chair smacking its arms into his head moments before his teeth dug into her leg.

Kicking frantically, Hermione got her leg free and whirled around. Ginny was slowly standing up behind her. Breathing heavily, Hermione ran towards the door that led to the hall and the entrance to the Burrow. She could hear Ron's and Ginny's rattling breath behind her as she stumbled and bumped into the cluttered furniture of the Weasley residence.

She reached the door and flung it open, bursting out into the cool night air of mid-fall. She slammed the door behind her just as Ron and Ginny reached it their fingers getting stuck between the door and the frame. Crying frantically, Hermione was forced to smash it shut with all her might, severing the fingers to the knuckle. They fell down at her feet.

Out in the open night, Hermione took deep steady breaths, staring at the door, shock over everything that had just happened flooding her system. A crash hit the door, startling Hermione out of her daze and she backed away. With great heaves, the figures inside beat at the door, desperately trying to get to Hermione and do what had already been done to Molly.

Breathing heavily, Hermione turned to leave and raced for the endless fields that surrounded the Burrow, no idea where she would go or what she would do.

As she ran, she saw Arthur walking the fields with a lurching and shuffling gait, his head turning slowly in her direction as she passed.

However, Hermione was a smart woman and she had seen enough that night to know better. She kept going, quickening her pace and left Arthur and the Burrow far behind.


	3. Chapter 2: The Daily Prophet

**Chapter 2**

October 26, 2003

 ** _THE WEASLEY MYSTERY_**

 _8:00 AM TUESDAY, THE BURROW. Aurors are baffled by an incident at the Burrow. Several members of the Weasley family have disappeared without a trace, including Hermione Granger, fiancé to the Weasley's youngest son and a close friend of Harry Potter, the boy who lived. George Weasley returned home late Wednesday evening in anticipation of his brothers approaching nuptials to Ms. Granger._

 _"I returned home to find the place completely ransacked, blood all over the floor. It looks like there was a fight here." The upset young men stated this morning to out reporters. "I just want to know what had happened to my family, my brothers and I are all very upset._

 _Aurors have tested the blood found on the scene, and have found samples matching both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, their daughter, Ginny, and their son Ronald. However, no trace of Hermione has been found, leading some of those working the case to question how the young woman was connected._

 _Miffy Trinkleton, the wedding planner overseeing the union between Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger has told the daily prophet that the young bride to be had been under a lot of stress._

 _"Just the past weekend she had the wrong orders of dresses come in. Pink tulle had been miswritten on the order as mink tulle, and she had received an entire order of dresses with furry skirts," the planner told our interviewer. "She was devastated, as you could imagine."_

 _Ms. Granger has also been noted to have a long history of putting herself under high amounts of pressure. Being the best friend to the Boy Who Lived, she often was put into near death situations during her years at Hogwarts. However, the young muggle-born witch still managed to obtain top of her year grades._

 _"She was always over-achieving. It's no surprise that she might eventually crack," a former classmate of Granger, Pansy Parkinson tells us. "There were rumors that she even obtained a time turner in order to attend more classes in our third year."_

 _Mr. Potter was seen grieving with the remaining Weasleys this morning, his romance with the youngest Weasley daughter being well known. When we tried to ask him about his friends and girlfriend, he declined our interview._

 _That being said, the blood stained mystery here at the Burrow leads us to wonder here at the daily prophet if perhaps we are putting our young people under too much stress. The Ministry is searching for anyone that may have seen anything and requests that anyone that has information to contact them immediately._

 _Reported by Rita Skeeter._

Hermione dropped the paper to the table in front of her, and pulled the hood of her cloak further over her head, tucking a stray chestnut curl back inside. When she left the Weasley's that night she had ran and ran, not stopping until she had found herself back among civilization.

And not a thing seemed out of place. Witches and wizards and muggles alike all milled about as if nothing terrible had happened. She just couldn't fathom how everyone could go on about as if nothing huge was happening.

She hadn't brought her phone with her, nor did she have access to an owl, or any money to use one of the standard post ones. She had just finished up at Gringotts, walking the entire way to Diagon Alley after she snuck onto a train without paying when she had seen the newspaper article that was criminalizing her.

Everything had gone so horribly wrong. She needed to contact Harry and tell him what happened. He, if no one else, would believe her.

She trembled as she brought her glass to her lips, momentarily seeing the contents a swirly pool of blood. She jumped, sloshing the bloodless water it contained all over the table as she pushed it away from herself abruptly. The waitress that was serving the tables in the Leaky Cauldron tutted her tongue, and muttered a quick _tergeo_ charm, cleaning up the water up off of Hermione's table. She nodded to the witch, keeping her eyes lowered to her drink.

The door to the inn opened, allowing the cool night air to waft inside as new patrons walked inside. She heard the loud giggles of those inebriated on firewhiskey. If only everyone knew what was happening, they wouldn't be so reckless, leaving these senses numbed to the danger around them.

Hermione dug into her pockets pulling out a few coins to leave a tip, for she had not ordered a morsel of food. She hadn't eaten the day before since every time she looked at food, all she saw was Ron standing, the bloody strings of gore hanging from his mouth and her stomach rolled, ready to vomit whatever meager contents remained within her.

A familiar voice carrier over the room, a part of the group of strangers currently making their way to a table near where Hermione was situated, cutting through her dark recollections.

"Shit," she cursed under her breath, hastily setting her coins on the table, and turning quickly trying to escape before _he_ saw her.

She ran face first into a tall figure, the group moving behind her just as she had clumsily turned in an attempt to race back to her room.

"Watch it," the familiar voice sneered, causing Hermione to flinch.

"Sorry about that," she muttered quietly, trying to mask her voice, desperately hoping that he had not seen her.

"Fucking drunks," he continued in his snobbish drawl that Hermione usually found so irritating, freezing fear into her veins. "Let us see under that hood there."

Frantic, Hermione ducked, scampering away from the crowd of people, giggles breaking out behind her.

"I think it wants to be left alone, Draco," replied the nasally pitched voice of Pansy Parkinson. "Come now; let's have another drink, nevermind that rude stranger over there, let them be about their business, whatever that is."

"I just hate rude people, Pansy. The disrespect to the Malfoy family name worsens with every passing day."

She heard a sigh, and their footsteps shuffle as they settled at a table. Pansy started cooing drunkenly to Draco as she reassured him he was still very respectable even after everything that had gone down with his father after the Battle of Hogwarts. None of them had gone to Azkaban after all.

It was just her luck that she would be inundated with old Slytherin schoolmates on top of everything she was dealing with. Anger flared within her when she remembered the incriminating words Pansy had told the reporters of the Daily Prophet. The urge to turn around and tell her just how stressful things were tugged at her impulses, but she buried them down.

Yelling and screaming her horrific tale would just make her seem like the madwoman the wizarding media was portraying her as.

Hermione quietly ascended the stairs, feeling wary as she left the busy lower levels for the quieter rooms above. She turned down the hall, the light flickering slightly. She eyed it, trepidation slithering up her spine as it returned to its usual glow. Hermione approached her room and entered it, closing and locking the door tightly behind her.

She hadn't encountered any...incidents ever since she had left the Weasleys. She had been starting to hope morbidly that perhaps whatever happened there had been an isolated incident in its terribleness. Now alone, she wished desperately to grieve over the loss of her friends and future husband, however, she did not have time to waste on her tears. She had already wasted too much time hiding like some criminal as she had moved through Diagon Alley.

What did she do? She needed to contact Harry, her parents. However she still did not have a phone, and she had searched desperately for a payphone around the muggle portion of London, but she hadn't seen even one. She found herself cursing technology, for it was creating more problems than she had anticipated. She wasn't even sure if Harry kept his new cell phone charged, the wizard more attuned to the wizard ways.

If she tried to contact him by owl, the mail would be checked by the investigators on the case, most likely screening them for her trying to contact him. It would be the first place they checked.

She sighed, sinking onto the hard mattress of the bed. The room smelled slightly musky, and the tickle of dust irritated her nose as she settled onto the blankets. She eyed the outdated wallpaper lining the walls as she contemplated her predicament. Perhaps she could access him by the floo network, like Sirius had done. All she would need is to find some floo powder and a fireplace. Only, she didn't have the advantage of knowing he would eventually pass by a certain fireplace. She sighed.

She felt very much like Sirius Black at that particular moment. She needed to prove her innocence before this got out of hand. Only, would anyone ever believe her story?

It was just then, as Hermione was despairing over anyone believing in her unlikely tale, which was more fit for a horror movie, that the shrill screams sounded throughout the Leaky Cauldron, coming from below.

It seemed that perhaps Hermione's tale wasn't so unbelievable after all.


	4. Chapter 3: Avada Kedavra

**Chapter 3**

Draco looked down into his mug of firewhiskey, the reddish liquid entrancing him as he felt the effects of it lingering in his body. He looked up, realizing Parkinson was nattering at him. His eyes caught the title of a discarded Daily Prophet still sitting on their table.

"So what's the deal with those weasels?" Draco slurred. He furrowed his brows and pushed his drink away. It was best that he cut himself off before getting completely inebriated and acting like a fool. He did not usually let himself indulge in such pleasures, but with the week he was having when Zabini had mentioned grabbing some drinks, he had found himself more than willing.

His eyes settled on Parkinson's pug-nosed face, making him reconsider. How had he got himself stuck alone with her? He eyed her hand, which was clutching his arm in some attempt at flirtation across the slightly damp wooden table.

"Oh, it's curious really! They have all up and disappeared, that mu-," Parkinson said, ducking her head and lowering her voice as she finished. "-dblood, Granger is gone too. I think the know-it-all bitch finally lost it."

Draco furrowed his brows, thinking of the curly haired girl that had been all awkward and buck-toothed back in his first year. He chose to neglect his memories of her punching him in the face, and how she had become quite fit in her later years.

Thinking that way of the mudblood Granger was not something Draco would do. Even if as time passed, he found himself deterring more and more from his parent's ideology. His parent's pure-blood mentality had nearly destroyed his family, and if they had not deferred at the last minute, they would all be locked up in Azkaban that moment.

"Why would she kill the Weasleys? Wasn't she marrying the weasel himself?"

Pansy frowned at him, her fingers digging into his arm slightly. "Because she's bloody nuts, that's why." Pansy eyed him, obviously concerned over his lack of enthusiasm in following her line of thought.

Draco shook his head, trying to shake off the remaining firewhiskey in his system and failing., He drew his arm back from Parkinson's clutches. "It doesn't make sense; she was part of the golden trio for fucks sakes."

Pansy sniffed, noticing Draco's snub, but not all that affected by it. She simply took a swig of her firewhiskey, eyeing him with dark eyes.

If it wasn't for that nose, she may even be pretty, Draco considered. He shook his head.

Yeah, no more firewhiskey for him if he was considering Pansy Parkinson. That was a bad idea for several reasons.

"Well, they found the blood of all the Weasleys that had been present in the home, and they didn't find a speck of hers, and she's missing too."

Draco tilted his head, considering. "Maybe she was kidnapped?"

Parkinson snorted, reminding him a bit of the dog he likened her to. "Who's daft enough to try to kidnap Hermione Granger?"

She had him there. He shrugged. "I still don't think she did it-"

Draco broke off, his eyes lifting to the door. There stood, Theodore Nott, his chest heaving, a bloody chunk missing from his shoulder. Draco froze, his body going numb, watching as his friend stumbled forward, grabbing a chair and nearly falling over.

Parkinson jumped to her feet, her wand out. "Nott, bloody hell! What happened to you?"

Draco stood slowly from his chair moving forwards in front of Parkinson, looking at his friend as he bled profusely. His eye rose to the door, watching for who had ever attacked Nott.

"I was b-bit," Nott rasped, his weight growing heavy against the chair he was gripping, his eyes pale as the looked back at his Slytherin friends. "A man, he looked passed out...I went to see...he bit me."

"You're not making any sense, mate," Draco said as he started forward, intending to support his friend. He turned yelling at the frozen waitress who stood as still as someone turned to stone by a basilisk, gaping at the bleeding young man. "Would you get someone, a skilled healer?"

Draco turned back, prepared to try using a healing spell on Nott, though he was not very skilled in the healing arts. There was _tergeo_ which would remove the blood, but as Nott was bleeding profusely, that wouldn't do much. Then there was _anapneo_ which would clear his throat, but Draco could not tell if he was choking.

Draco's eyes flickered back to the door, stopping his inner dialogue of spells he knew that would not help his friend. He no longer could think, for at the door stood a very dead looking muggle, his throat a mass of bloody tendons, so that his head hung slightly to the side, unable to support itself on his own. The walking dead person stumbled forward, grabbing onto Nott, and before Draco could even utter a charm, the dead-muggle biting down into Nott, ripping at his flesh with his teeth.

Parkinson screamed.

"What the bloody-," Draco started, stumbling back into a hysterical Pansy. He heard a movement to his left, realizing the Waitress and cook had gone off to hide behind the counter.

Draco had seen some scary shit in his life, he had been in the presence of the Dark Lord, Voldemort himself. But this moment, right now, terrified Draco more than he had ever been before. Slytherins were cunning and ambitious, but they lacked Gryffindor courage. And Draco was a Slytherin through and through.

His mind was blank, not a single spell came forward in his mind as the man dropped a now unconscious and – oh Merlin, dead – Nott to the floor. It stumbled forward, reaching out its hands towards Draco and Parkinson, who was still blubbering screaming in his ear.

"Knock it off, will you," Draco hissed at her, moving back, bumping into a table and chair, knocking it to the ground. The dead muggle seemed to hear the noise, redirecting itself to where Draco was leading himself and a sniveling Parkinson.

"R- _Repello_!" Draco finally shouted, the spell sputtering on his wand but not fully forming at his failed execution. He had mastered wandless magic, for Merlin's sake. Why was magic failing him now when he needed it most?

" _Stupefy_!" Draco tried again, this time a red shot of magic escaping his wand, but because of his trembling hand the spell missed the monster, leaving a sizzling mark on the table beside where it now pushed forward with large lurching steps.

Draco closed his eyes, gathering himself, remembering who he was, and how he had always excelled in his studies and magic casting at Hogwarts. He needed to calm down and focus.

He wasn't going to fuck around this time.

" _Avada Kedarva_ ," Draco said, this time executing the spell effortlessly, his hand steady as the green spell shot forward, hitting the dead man squaring the chest. It collapsed, falling to the ground. Draco let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Draco, you did it!" Pansy nearly squealed, wrapping her arms around Draco from where she was behind him. "You saved us!"

"Yeah, and no help from yo-"

Draco broke off, noticing with horror as the figure of the dead muggle rose, stumbling back to his feet.

"It can't be..." Draco shook his head in disbelief. He was so focused on the dead man that he did not see the dark figure racing down the stairs.

The lifeless muggle, hitched forward, Draco and Parkinson nearly within its grasp, its jaws snapping hungrily as Draco pushed himself and Parkinson closer and closer to the wall. He cursed himself, realizing they were stuck in a corner, the only way out was to move towards the terrible _thing_ currently trying to eat them alive.

But, just as Draco prepared himself to attempt another spell, thinking maybe he had done something wrong the first time, a chair smacked the muggle man down, and then repeatedly was brought down on him, successfully bashing in the dead man's head.

Slowly, Draco's eyes moved upwards looking up at his savior as she pushed back her hood. It was the woman that had bumped into him earlier.

"Magic doesn't work. Trust me, I tried," she said, her know-it-all tone not lost even as her breaths came in rapid pants. He lowered his eyes again, looking at the dead monster, a bloody mess on the floor with its brains showing through its cracked skull. The walking dead person that had just tried to eat him alive, and had succeeded in getting to his friend.

"Granger?"

She smiled sadly, nodding in confirmation. "Malfoy."


	5. Chapter 4: Draco Malfoy

Chapter 4

Draco Malfoy stood there, his jaw slightly slackened as he stared back at Hermione, her weapon of choice these days in her hand: a chair. She dropped it, that blood from the muggle now splattered across her cloak, some even on her face. Disgusted she wiped it away and looked back to Malfoy. He was silent, his eyes wide, behind him, Pansy Parkinson was keening like a beached whale, the sound reverberating throughout the room. Hermione looked warily to the still open door to the Leaky Cauldron. The waitress and the cook were nowhere in sight.

"Hav-Have you not seen this before?" Clearly what she had seen wasn't an isolated event.

Slowly, Malfoy rose his head to look her again in the face, shaking his head. "How did you know how to kill it, Granger?"

She dropped her eyes, turning again to stare at the door, its openness to her back making her feel exposed and on edge. Her eyes drifted over Theodore Nott's body, his neck nearly ripped out and a bloody mess on the floor. That must have been when Pansy's screaming had started.

Her hopes that what she had experienced had been an isolated event dwindled. She had seen a muggle film similar to this but had imagined it to be an act of fiction. But, it seemed that like magic, wizardry, and her receiving her Hogwarts letter and being a witch, these kinds of things were not made up either.

"I guessed."

His pale eyes focused on her, the light grey color having always unnerved her. She still was not entirely convinced he did not carry Veela blood through the Malfoy line. Though it was odd to see male Veela's - the only thing holding her back from her conclusion. She had never fully researched it as she had intended.

His eyebrows furrowed.

"You mean, you didn't know?" he seemed surprised, the idea of Hermione having to guess something rather than go in knowing the result seeming to bring him back to reality due to its absurdity.

"I-I tried the things you did first, wh-when R-One of them attacked me before."

Malfoy was looking at her suspiciously, not missing how she had almost said Ron. He started to reply when a noise at the door made Hermione jump, her chair still in hand, ready to fight off another one of the monsters.

Instead, all she saw was a wide-eyed Blaise Zabini. Time had treated the always handsome Slytherin well, his dark features the opposite to Malfoy's as his looked down at his comrade on the floor where he lay half eaten. Next, his eyes followed the drops of blood over to Hermione's feet, his hazel colored eyes rising to where Hermione stood, then to where his two friends still were standing frozen in front of her.

He, of course, jumped to the worse conclusion first.

Raising his wand at her. "You've really gone bloody mental, Granger." He held his wand steady with the trained skill of an Auror, the young wizard having competed with Harry and Ron in the Auror department since they graduated Hogwarts. She hadn't seen him in years, but she had heard Ron's complaints of the old school rival.

However, it was Malfoy that spoke up, as Hermione eyed him. She had started learning wandless magic last year becoming quite skilled at it, and even if her hand was currently not on her wand, she had mastered a few spells that could still defend herself against the volatile wizard.

She furrowed her brows. That is – if magic worked this time.

"Zabini, she didn't do this."

Zabini's dark brows lifted on his forehead looking at his Slytherin friend in disbelief. "Malfoy, there's two dead people and she's covered in blood and you look bloody terrified."

Malfoy sneered at that as if implying he was afraid of the muggle-born witch was an insult. She suspected the arrogant personalities of the two young men often butted heads.

"That may be how it looks, however, she didn't kill Nott of the muggle. The muggle killed Nott and then tried to kill us. Granger is the one that stopped him, now please lower your wand," Malfoy replied tiredly, looking back to Hermione with trepidation.

"Why are you here, Granger?" Malfoy asked as Zabini neared then, stepping over the muggle man on the floor, looking slightly sick as she took in his bashed in head. Hermione again looked to the door. Something was putting her off. She swore she heard the same gurgling breaths she had when Ron and Ginny had stalked her, making her back away from the two wizard men towards the stairway. Nothing was at the door.

"I was trying to find Harry, but I couldn't apparate."

Malfoy looked at her in confusion. "Why couldn't you apparate?"

Hermione looked to him, something occurring to her. She had assumed her tumultuous emotions to be the cause for her lapse in magic. But it was more than that, like the usual sense of its essence was weaker around them. Immediately, she had to test her theory.

"Have either of you apparated in the last few days?"

"Of cour..." Zabini started, then his face fell. "Well, actually it might have been about a week since I apparated to London after visiting my mum."

Hermione nodded, looking to Malfoy, her legs continuing to take her towards the stairwell, knowing it was safer that way than it was out in the open in the line of the door.

"Malfoy?"

His eyes were sharp on her, the young wizard having been through a number of horrors of his own during the war, and already adapting to the situation quicker than the other two Slytherins who still looked sick in the face, Parkinson shaking visibly.

Malfoy shook his head, his cold eyes meeting hers. "It's been some time since I have cared to visit my parents," he replied. She sensed an edge to his voice, suggesting the youngest Malfoy was somewhat contemptuous towards his parents.

She nodded, not bothering the ask Parkinson, as the young witch continued to shake, paying them little mind as she stared at Nott's dead body. Her hair had come loose from where it had been pulled back from her face, and her tight party dress was riding up, making her look as disheveled on the outside as she likely felt on the inside.

However, it was Parkinson, therefore, that noticed the source of Hermione's unease first.

"Um-," the witch started her voice weak and hoarse from her prior screaming.

The two young men ignored the mumbling witch as they started to contemplate if they should try apparating.

"She can't be right, I'm sure I still can," Zabini said.

"Why don't you try it then?" Malfoy asked him.

Zabini looked down at his body. "I'm not keen on splinching. You try."

"Um-Nott..."

"No way in hell, mate," Malfoy replied, crossing his arms. Behind him Pansy's eyes were wide. Hermione turned to look at what she was looking at and found herself frozen momentarily as well.

"Would you two shut up," Parkinson stuttered.

"Well, I guess we won't find out then since you're too afraid to mark up your pretty face then."

"Would you two blokes shut up!" Hermione hissed, backing towards the stairs. Malfoy and Zabini suddenly went quiet noticing the ominous energy in the room.

With stumbling steps, Nott slowly rose to his feet. His head lolled to the side, his half eaten neck unable to support its weight as his fresh blood continued to pour down his body, staining his white shirt.

"It can't be-,"

Malfoy's eyes were wide, but he wasn't as in denial as his friend, having seen that the muggle man had been dead before when he attacked his friend.

Hermione turned, grabbing Zabini who was nearer to her. Behind Nott, another person stumbled in, a muggle woman, her arm torn open and hanging limply at her side. Both sets of lifeless eyes fixed on them as Nott and the muggle woman blocked the entrance, so there was only one way to go.

"We have to go upstairs, we have to get out of here, we are exposed."

Malfoy was shaking his head as she started tugging the other Slytherin with her.

"We'll be trapped," he said, his eyes meeting hers again. For a moment they seemed to share a thought process, Hermione ever analytical, Malfoy dead set on his own survival.

Another bloody club goer joined the woman at the door, pushing inside.

"We have no choice, Malfoy!"

Zabini's eyes were fixed on the door, his steps as he followed Hermione starting to become just as determined. "I agree with, Granger, we have to get out of here. Upstairs maybe we can hide and they'll forget about us."

Malfoy eyed them, moving towards the two. Hermione dropped Zabini's arm, the wizard now moving of his own accord.

"Parkinson let's go," she called after the stationary witch, who was staring at Nott as he neared her. She never liked the pug-nosed woman, but fear settled in her stomach as she saw the woman stay still, not moving an inch as Nott's lifeless body moved closer and closer to her.

Malfoy turned, his expression frantic. "Come on, Pansy!"

The wizard's use of her first name seemed to startle her out of her state, Promptly, the witch was moving towards them. Hermione continued forward reaching the steps, just behind Zabini, Malfoy at her back.

She heard a feminine cry behind her as she started up the steps, turning just in time to see Parkinson fall at the base of the stairwell. Malfoy pushed past her, racing with Zabini up the steps.

Hermione hesitated but started towards the witch as she struggled to get to her feet in her rather unsteady heeled shoes.

However, Nott got there first, grabbing Parkinson's legs and biting down into it before she could get back to her feet. The witch screamed, kicking at him with her other leg, the heel piercing right through his skull, making her jerk her leg back, hysterical tears coating the woman's face.

Hermione reached her, grabbing her arms and lifting her up to her feet. Parkinson stumbled forward with a cry of pain as she tried to put weight on her now torn up calf muscle. Unrelenting, Hermione took her weight, nearly carrying her up the stairs just as the other two dead muggles reached the stairwell's base.

A third now joined them, his face already bloody from a recent feed, the three of them walking right over Nott's now stationary body as they started up the steps in a blind movement as the monster's followed them up the stairs.

Reaching the top, Hermione raced to the door. She was momentarily surprised to discover it was held open by Malfoy, who eyed them anxiously. They raced inside, Hermione dragging a bleeding Parkinson. Malfoy slammed the door shut, casting a few locking spells wordlessly as they all watching it.

Hermione was breathing heavily from the exertion, the two men hiding their fear with their hard frozen faces as they silently waited. Parkinson wept softly at her side, the Slytherin witch also realizing the importance of being quiet.

After a few moments, they heard footsteps pace the hallway, the three dead muggles squeezing into the narrow space. With bated breath, Hermione hoped she would hear them move onwards, perhaps far enough down the hall they could escape passed them

However, their steps paused, their wet breaths gurgling on the other side as she heard several of them outside their door. Then a slight scratch turned into a pound, the door jumping with the force of their desperation to get inside, to them.

They were trapped.


	6. Chapter 5: Thunderbolt

**Chapter 5**

Draco cursed profusely under his breath, knowing he had cast a wordless _muffliato_ charm on the room as he had locked it, hoping he could muffle any sounds they made as the four wizards and witches settled into the room.

The monsters had come anyway.

Their gurgling breaths on the other side of the door coalesced into a loud hiss, the combined sound of their hungry voices reaching them through the thick wood. Fear was pounding heavy in Draco's chest, his eyes darting around the room desperately for something to get him out of there.

Draco looked to Granger as she held a bleeding Parkinson in her arms, the young woman's whimpers sounding like loud screams throughout the room as they grated on his nerves. She needed to be quiet. The spell he had cast to disguise their presence in the room hadn't worked, and the injured woman with her whimpers and moans was just making it worse.

He gritted his teeth. If he could make it out of there alive, keeping the intelligent Gryffindor witch would likely be an advantage. Even now, as he felt himself losing control over his wild emotions on the inside, he could see a calmness descend on her face, a cool calculation in her eyes as she carefully inspected the room. Her courage and her experience in deadly and horrific situations from the war had only made her stronger.

He found himself respectful - and perhaps a little envious, of her control in that moment.

Blaise Zabini, now, the blubbering fool – he could probably do without his antics. He had never really liked the narcissistic bloke that much anyway. Blaise's eyes were darting around the dim room, the lights flickering slightly. The wizard was ever the sheltered pureblood, and Zabini hadn't seen the true effects of the war, nor had it really impacted his family like it had Draco's.

"She-she's been bit!" Zabini exclaimed, his shaky arm pointed at Parkinson where she was shivering in pain on the floor, her blood collecting under the two witches. "The damn monsters bit her!"

Hermione, looked down to inspect the wound, her features pulled into a grim line. "I'm not sure how to fix it." The witch looked down at Pansy's legs, muttering a few healing spells. None of them to any effect.

Draco's stomach sank with dread. He knew Granger's spells had been perfectly cast. Magic would not work in healing Pansy's injuries. By the minute, she was getting paler and paler, her blood seeping out from her to spread across the hardwood to the nearby carpet.

The bloody witch was probably drawing them all to her. Maybe they could smell her blood. Draco cursed. Even if Parkinson had been a lifelong acquaintance to him, right then she was nothing more than a liability. Granger just had to go back and save her, the little do-good witch unable to prioritize her own survival.

Draco, ever the Malfoy, would always put his own life first. Right then Pansy was only going to get them all killed – one way or another.

"Granger, get back from her," Draco said softly, watching as the witch started to lose consciousness. The impact of her injury was affecting her faster than others. An important artery had likely been damaged.

Granger lifted her brown eyes and fixed him with a hard stare. "She needs our help, Malfoy."

"She's dying, and no charms you have cast yet have worked. You know that it's not anything you have done."

She shook her head, her jaw clenched. She looked back down at the witch, her hands covered in Pansy's blood as she tried to put pressure on the seeping leg wound, the flesh ripped and ragged from the teeth of the monsters who continued to bang on the door in an effort to get to them.

Granger's eyes filled with tears, looking down at the woman beneath her. Pansy's eyes had now fluttered closed, her body going still. "It's not right, you know."

How Granger could find it within herself to shed tears over Pansy Parkinson, a witch that had only tormented and bullied her throughout all of Hogwarts, was beyond him. She was useful, but her compassion would be her undoing in what was to come. He exhaled deeply.

He still needed her.

"She's going to turn into one of them," Zabini muttered softly.

Granger's eyes rose to him. Draco could see in her eyes that she had suspected to same, but a stubbornness had overtaken it. "We don't know that."

Draco shook his head. He too had the same idea as the other wizard. "You saw them, Granger, they all had bites and marks on them... Whatever these things are, they infect you. That's why Nott became one."

Granger turned her teary eyes back to him, her eyes filled with despair yet her face set in hard determination. "I haven't tried everything yet. We can't just leave her."

Blaise stepped forward. "No, we have to kill her. We have no idea when she'll turn."

Granger set him with a heavy glare. "Over my dead body, Zabini," she nearly growled.

Yeah, that was the Granger that had faced off against death eaters and endured his aunt's torture back at his family's manor.

Her painful screams as Bellatrix Lestrange had carved 'mudblood' onto her arm had haunted him for years afterward.

Draco turned his head away from the Gryffindor witch, the memories making him feel disoriented. He needed to focus.

"Don't think I won't, Granger." Zabini stepped forward, his wand poised before him, as Granger protectively covered Pansy's body.

Draco was quite sure Parkinson was already dead.

"Granger, get away from her," Draco spoke, wincing at a particularly hard push against the door. It sounded like more had joined the dead muggles outside their door.

"Really? You too Malfoy?" she spat. Granger was now kneeling in front of Parkinson's body, her denim clad legs covered in Parkinson's blood under her dark cloak.

He shook his head. "She's already dead."

Granger spun around, checking Parkinson's neck for a pulse. Draco felt himself step towards her, then stopped, eying the dead witch with trepidation. "She's going to turn, we need to get rid of her before she does."

Granger looked up at him, aghast, tears streaking her blood splattered face. "Is this how you two treat your dead friends? Just get rid of them?"

"Granger, calm down," Draco pointed at Parkinson. "Right now, we need to _survive_. Those things are still outside, and we are stuck in here. Having another one _inside_ with us is a bloody terrible idea."

She sniffed, her eyes hardening. Slowly she rose them to him, then looked at the door. It was jumping with the combined weight of those behind it. For a moment, she sat there staring then she stood, looking down at the witch and exhaling deeply.

Granger turned to both of them and stepped away from the body of Parkinson, glaring back at Zabini. She pointed behind the sneering wizard. "The only way out is that window," she said in a matter-of-fact tone as if she had known the solution to their dilemma all along.

Draco stepped forward grabbing her arm. "Well, why didn't you point that out sooner. Any chance you have an idea on how to get through that window? The drop alone will kill us."

She glared up at him steadily, her chocolate colored eyes refusing to break eye contact.

She pointed now towards the beds, where Zabini's and his own luggage still sat unpacked as they had stopped there for the night.

"You two have brooms, don't you?"

Draco frowned back at his then turned, looking to see the golden handle of his brand-new Thunderbolt sticking out the side.

"What about you, Granger. I don't suppose you have a broom nearby," Zabini sneered, eyeing the Gryffindor woman with ill-contained distaste.

"Well, we all know you can't just leave _me_ behind, now can you?" she said confidently, brushing past Draco to open the window to peer outside. It was just wide enough to fly through one broom at a time.

Draco didn't disagree, Granger was one of the smartest witches he knew, and she had already saved his arse whether he wanted to admit it or not.

Most certainly never to _her_.

Draco went and grabbed his broom, Zabini scrambling to go get his. He turned, his eyes shooting down to Parkinson where she lay.

Had she just twitched?

With Nott it had only taken a few minutes, would Parkinson turn soon as well? He wasn't staying to find out. He pushed toward the window, lining himself up first. He turned to Granger, straddling his broom and moving forward so there was space behind him. She eyed him warily, also turning to shoot a look at Parkinson where she lay.

Behind them, Zabini frowned, clearly not pleased that Draco had positioned himself to leave first. A particularly destructive boom sounded from the door, the weight of many bodies pressing against it.

"Perhaps we should let-,"

"Now, Granger. You ride with me." Draco was most certainly not going to be stuck alone if they got separated. He looked to Zabini's hardened eyes, feeling like he saw Parkinson move out of the corner of his eye. "Meet us at the Quidditch Pitch - less populated areas should be safer right now. We need to get out of London."

Zabini nodded stiffly, fear evident in his eyes. He just wanted to get out of there.

She moved behind him after another pause, her body pressing close to his. Besides her strong front, he could feel her trembling as she positioned herself behind him. Realizing that she too was afraid only served to remind him of his own fear. He prepared himself to take flight.

"Hold on tight," he told her as she reluctantly wrapped her arms around him. He pressed off the ground, positioning the broom so he could kick off and exit through the window, bending himself down low so they could fit through the window. He felt Granger press down with him.

He kicked off, bolting out through the window. Just as they lifted in the air, they heard a strangled shriek behind them. He felt Grangers' arms tighten around him, as she spun her head to look at the room they just left.

"Draco!"

Startled by the masculine scream and Granger's use of his first name, he turned his head to her as he leveled out his broom. "What is it?"

"We have to go back! Zabini – It's Pansy."

Draco tightened his hold on his broom, pausing to turn slightly so he could see back in the room. Blaise was struggling where he was, his broom still between his legs, holding off a dead Parkinson as she limped on her injured legs, her feet still clad in her broken high heels. She snapped her teeth in Zabini's face.

Granger tugged at him from behind, urging him to turn his broom. Below them, on the street, he heard shuffles of several feet gathering underneath them where they floated in the air. He looked down cursing to see three more of the monsters reaching their arms up towards them, as if they could grab them if they reached high enough.

"No," he said turning northward. They had a long flight ahead of them to get anywhere safe. London was a huge populated city, they would be safer near Leeds or Wales. Luckily, the Quidditch Pitch wasn't as far, yet it would still be a long flight, regardless of the speed of his broom.

"What? Draco, are you really going to leave him to die!? Isn't he your friend?"

"Zabini can take care of himself. And if he can't, then he will just get us killed with him," Draco replied coldly. He lifted the broom, pulling them higher in the air.

"You are an absolute arse Malfoy, How can y-,"

But her voice was lost to the wind, her insults never making it to his ears as Draco's new high-speed Thunderbolt shot through the air, taking them far away from the horrors they left behind them. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he hoped Zabini made it out okay.


	7. Chapter 6: Bag of Ferrets

**Chapter 6**

Hermione had read plenty of books in regards to the care of, and the flying of, broomsticks. However, when it came to this particular discipline, it was something where Hermione was admittedly lacking in expertise. For, she could read as many books as she wanted to on the subject, it wouldn't make her any more capable of actually _doing_ it.

Thus, it was notable to mention that she wasn't much a fan of flying.

Therefore, when she noticed that the boom seemed to be bumping around a bit, jerking them this way and that sporadically throughout their journey, she did not think that much of it at first. Surely, it was just a wind, a rather hard breeze that was shifting the air currents around them.

Nothing to get all riled up about - at least she tried to tell herself that.

She was clutching to Malfoy's back in a rather embarrassing manner, something she would likely never had done had she not been stuck up with him on nothing but a narrow piece of wood preventing her from falling far down to the ground under them. She clenched her eyes shut in order to prevent herself from looking down to the ground.

There was a multitude of horrors available down there, none of which she was willing to see. As it was, she was barely holding herself together from falling over the brink of hysteria with the events that had just occurred.

She felt terrible for how they had just left Zabini behind. She knew they would have been able to help him - they hadn't been that far off yet. If Malfoy had just taken a second to go back and save his friend, he might have been flying behind them now, not lost to whichever fate had been brought upon him back at the Leaky Cauldron.

But, the last time she had spared a look behind them, all she had seen was the endless expanse of the clear nighttime sky as they flew through the air rapidly, Malfoy was rather eager to leave what they had just experienced far behind them.

Hermione didn't much care for the Slytherin, Zabini, but with everything that was going on around her, she refused to leave anyone behind. Had she been the one in control of the broom, things would have happened very differently.

The broom jumped again, this time dropping quite quickly for a few moments, making Hermione's heart leap into the air as she felt herself floating for several moments until Malfoy regained control over his broom, leveling them out. Hermione gripped him tightly, causing the Slytherin wizard to grunt, and shift his weight on the broom. She loosened her arms after a few moments, once her racing heart had calmed down.

"Is-is there a reason it keeps doing that?" she asked over the wind, her curly strands of hair blowing across her face as she poked it out in an effort to project her voice forward, and not lose it to the rushing air around them.

Malfoy turned his chin slightly, acknowledging that he had heard her. "It's...Unusual,' he said after several seconds. She could see his pale eyebrows pushed together on what she could make out of his profile.

" _Unusual_?" she nearly yelled back, her voice rising it pitch. Partially because of the wind, but also because she did not like the sound of that one little bit.

"Yes... The Thunderbolt is known to be quite a smooth ride. It's the top broomstick on the mar..."

Dread sunk into her, Malfoy's words fading away as her mind started racing. If she could not apparate, and magic itself seemed to be less and less effective...

Why would a broom be able to fly?

Before she could open her mouth to warn him, the broom wobbled beneath them, then dropped again suddenly. Hermione was unable to contain a scream as she clutched Malfoy tightly, their bodies free falling through the air for a much longer time. Her eyes opened, the air stinging them as she saw the ground rising underneath them.

To her relief, Malfoy was able to level them out before they hit the dark ground below them. They were now hovering over the treetops of a forest, the tops of the trees sticking up like the tips of leaved spikes that would have had her impaled upon them had they continued their descent.

" _Get me off this thing_!"

Malfoy sighed turning to her so that she could see his slightly paler than usual face. She wasn't sure if it was a trick of the moonlight, or that he too was as afraid as she was. "We are still too far from the meetup point, Granger. If we do not make it there on time Blaise might think we are dead or have abandoned him."

She barely contained her derisive snort. "We _did_ abandon him, Malfoy."

Malfoy pursed his lips. "No, Granger, we survived. Don't think that he would not have done the same thing had our roles been reversed. If we went back in there we may of _all_ been dead."

The broom gave a small shudder, making Hermione reach her arm out to grab onto him as if gripping him for her dear life. Well actually, that was _exactly_ what she was doing. Her eyes were riveted on the ground below them, still a rather dangerous distance away.

"If we stay up here on this forsaken thing we _will both_ be dead."

Malfoy smirked, his eyes looking down to her arm, some of the weariness on his face momentarily departing in his mirth for the headstrong Gryffindor. "Strange."

Her eyes lifted from the ground, fixing him with a glare. "What is strange?"

He looked at her a moment, the hardness leaking back onto his sharp features. For a second, she saw some of his fear, and maybe even a glimpse of something inside him. Something vulnerable.

Something she saw was just like what Hermione was feeling, her world collapsing around her, everything she knew falling to ruins as the dead walked among them. Her future, her fiancé who she loved, and even all her knowledge of how things worked were all falling from her grasp. She no longer knew what the future held, Ron was dead, and nothing she had read or studied had truly prepared her for the world that was currently developing around her.

"Nothing. We best be off then," he replied after a moment of silence.

Hermione loosened her grip on his arm, allowing him to move back forward. She leveled her eyes on the horizon. She was curious about what he had wanted to say, but in that moment, she had more pressing matters to attend to.

Like getting off the damn broom and back on steady ground.

Malfoy urged the broom forward, and they were again shooting through the air at a high speed, the treetops whipping by below them as he now risked flying lower to the ground over the unpopulated area, the cover of darkness veiling any onlookers that might have seen them.

Though, now with all the terrifying things going on in the world, things Hermione couldn't even fathom, why even bother to hide the existence of magic from muggles at all?

It didn't even seem to be working the same anymore. Whatever had created the monsters around them, Hermione had a sick feeling in her stomach that the sudden decline in their magical abilities had something to do with the reanimated corpses that hungered for their flesh.

"Where are we?" she shouted to him again, letting herself relax as the broom continued to speed along smoothly.

Malfoy turned his head slightly so that his voice would carry to her, without taking his eyes off of the land in front of him.

"Hopefully getting close to the Moor."

"The Moor?" She furrowed her brows, looking down below them. There wasn't a Moor for miles from London, and they had only been flying about an hour.

"Yes, we should be getting close now. The Quidditch Pitch should be only a few more minutes now."

"You're telling me," she said, licking her lips which were chapping from the flying wind. "We have flown all the way to _Dart_ moor?"

That was impossible. Sure, if the could apparate they would have been there in a turn of their cloaks, however, they were not able to do that, or at least, it was a risk Hermione was not willing to take.

"Almost," he replied, his voice nearly getting pulled away with the wind. She felt a slight jerk on the broom again, but it remained steady and Hermione chose to not dwell on it. According to Malfoy they were nearly at their destination.

But still. _Dartmoor_.

"Why—how?"

"This is a Thunderbolt." Malfoy replied as if that was sufficient enough for a response.

Hermione looked down at the handle of the golden broomstick. She found herself rather in awe that a piece of magical wood could fly them faster than a muggle's car.

"Why did you choose to fly so far?"

Malfoy put on a tone as if she were too daft to understand. "Because it's closer than up around Leeds and I knew it was less populated around here so it would be safer."

Hermione was silent a moment.

"You do realize it's only slightly closer than Leeds, right?"

He didn't reply.

"And that there are national parks just south of London that would have been much closer."

He still didn't respond.

Hermione sighed, and muttered something along the lines of, "mad as a bag of ferrets." However, if Malfoy heard her, he didn't make any indication.

If anything, he seemed to be paying little attention to her at all.

"Malfoy?"

"Granger, bugger off, will you?"

She stiffened behind him. Surprised by his harsh language, and also realizing they were descending rapidly again as the broom lost speed. She had initially assumed it was because they were nearing their destination.

Now she was starting to realize that wasn't the case.

The Thunderbolt they were riding sputtered and jerked violently in the air. Hermione was all but clinging to Malfoy as she felt the air rushing past them again, only this time because they were falling, gravity pulling them from below.

The trees below them were rising up, their tips growing larger and larger. Hermione shut her eyes, wishing she could do something, anything to get them out of this.

Her mind was blank, spells and magic lost to her as she realized they were plummeting to the ground as Malfoy was not able to regain control of his broom.

 **A/N: Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews :) I know I haven't said much, but I just wanted to say hi! Hope you are enjoying the story so far.**


	8. Chapter 7: Broken

**Chapter 7**

Draco's eyes opened blearily, the first streams of sunlight filling his eyes as the world around him started to wake up. As his senses came back to him, a harsh pain settled throughout his body.

Then everything came crashing down on him. His last memories were falling through the air as he was unable to regain control of his rapidly moving Thunderbolt. He had even been so desperate he had even tried to apparate as Granger had held tight to his back. But it hadn't worked, he had only continued to fall.

He couldn't remember hitting the ground.

 _I shouldn't be alive_ , he thought, _I shouldn't be here_.

Draco's eyes slowly took in the incoming rays of light, squinting out into it, the light breeze rustling the leaves over his head. There was a shuffling sound beside him, something under him moving. Alarm coursed through him and he turned his head on the soft pillow below him where he lay.

He then found himself looking right at Hermione Granger's abdomen as his head sat in her lap. The Gryffindor looked beat up, a bloody gash along the side of her head where dried blood now congealed against her face. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back. But, Draco got the sense she wasn't really sleeping, and that if he said one word her eyes would pop open, ready and alert. Her arm was held delicately against herself as if it might be injured.

Feeling uncomfortable in such an intimate position with the Gryffindor, Draco made to move, pulling up his legs to hoist himself forward, noting how Granger's eyelids fluttered. Her face was a strange façade of tranquility in the turmoil of the last twenty-four hours.

Her loose chestnut curls got caught in the light breeze and fell over her pale skin, covering up the bloody gash – almost concealing the evidence that anything had happened at all. At a glance, she may have looked to be no more than a young woman resting against a tree in the middle of the forest.

As he lifted his leg, a sharp searing pain shot through his body, making him bite his teeth against a scream, causing it to instead escape his lips on a muffled groan. There was a feeling of movement within his leg underneath his flesh and muscle which was accompanying the pain. He knew innately that it was not normal, as he could feel the grinding of two bones that were not supposed to be separated.

The action and the sound roused Granger fully awake. Her hand clamped down on him, keeping him still.

"Your leg is broken, Malfoy," she said, her voice coming out raspy from hours of disuse. She cleared her throat, continuing on, "I tried to heal it but the spell was weaker than usual. Some skele-gro might do the trick, however, it's a bit extreme to use for a fracture." She frowned, "and I don't have any of that anyway, so it doesn't much matter."

Draco was breathing heavily, still reeling from the pain. He had never suffered a fracture for this long, healing spells quick and thorough, and he could feel the effect that the continuing inflammation was having on his body.

"What do you mean-" he ground out through his clenched teeth, "the spell was weak?"

"I mean-" She lifted her wand which he realized had been in her clenched fist the whole time. She waved it, muttering the incantation with perfect enunciation, perhaps better than he had ever done it - not that he'd admit it. The wand emitted a soft glow.

A very soft glow.

The magic seeping into his injury was, perhaps, fusing a bit of the bone back together, but if he even flinched incorrectly, the bone would rebreak. Much like what had happened when he had tried to move a few moments ago.

"Did you try it multiple times?" He could feel himself sweating, little beads of perspiration lining his brow. The pain was excruciating, and he could not escape it. The bone needed to be set and stabilized. However, Draco was not trained in muggle forms of first-aid.

"Yes," Granger said softly. "I only had so much energy to me after the fall, however. I will try again."

If Draco had been less conscious of his pain, the only real thing garnering his attention at that moment, he may have noticed that Granger had just admitted to trying to tend to him after their fall. She hadn't just left him, or spent her energy on trying to mend her own injuries. Her arm was just as broken as his leg where it sat cradled to her stomach.

Draco shifted uncomfortably, looking up at the brown eyed witch with impatience. "Why didn't it work. What is happening?"

Granger shook her head, furrowing her brows in concentration. She said the spell again, this time a bit more forcefully, and he could tell she was trying to put as much as she could into it. He shuddered, feeling the bone slowly try to fuse itself together, however, most of it was still raw and jagged where it was fractured under his skin. He looked down, eyeing the site of injury, noting how Granger had torn some of his pants order to attempt to stabilize it.

Even though they had been quite a few Galleons, at that moment he didn't much care. The flesh of his upper leg was visible and had a dark purple bruise spreading across his pale skin where blood had gathered around his injury.

And again, she spoke the words, and a bit more of his bone tried to mend itself back into one, his thigh feeling like a thousand hot embers were embedded inside him, scorching him from the inside out. He arched his back, letting out a cry past his clenched teeth as he unsettled some of the barely healed bone.

"Just a few more times, Draco," Granger said softly. "Try not to move until I am finished."

Her voice was weak, yet determined, and he was aware somewhere in the back of his mind that she was likely using everything she had in performing the spell to put him back together.

Draco may not have known it, but he was very lucky he had run into Hermione Granger before the world fell apart. Without her, he may not have survived the night at all.

"Just do it, Granger."

So she did, she spoke the spell several more times, each time the magic perhaps weaker than the first attempt, but the pain was no less profound as Draco did his best not to convulse under the mercy of her cruelly slow casting wand. It took perhaps five more tries - maybe even ten. Draco didn't count, his mind too focused on bearing through it.

Eventually, the pain ebbed away, and the bone straightened out, his leg no longer causing him great pain if he tried to move it.

"I think it's good now," he said, his voice coming out on a pant as he carefully lifted up on his elbows, his head rising from where it had been cradled in her lap. He looked up at the Gryffindor, noting how she sagged forward, her wand still directed at him. As he peered at her, he noted how the strenuous healing process had worn him out exponentially, his chest still heaving from the phantom memories of the pain it had caused him.

"Granger?" he asked when she didn't reply.

He leaned forward further, lifting his head so he could twist it to look at her better. He may have felt like he had just run a marathon, yet she looked like she had just fled from a gathering of particularly persistent Dementors without the protection of a _patronus_.

Draco furrowed his eyebrows. No, they had perhaps been through even worse.

"Granger?"

She jerked her head up, blinking her eyes rapidly as she looked over at him, unseeing. For a moment, he was reminded of the lifeless muggles as they had swarmed towards them with their unseeing eyes.

"Sorry, just – that was a bit difficult."

Draco nodded slowly, easing himself up so he was no longer supported on top of her, and considered the witch for the first time since he had awoken on the forest floor.

Just then, a twig snapped. The sound was close. Too close.

Draco suddenly found himself alert, struggling up to his legs. The injured leg no longer hurt, but it was numb and tender still around the site of injury. It seemed though Granger had done the difficult job of mending his bones, he was likely still not completely healed from the extent of the trauma.

Draco gazed about warily, seeing nothing of concern. He settled for the explanation of a small forest creature fleeing when it realized the two wizards were in its midst. He turned back to Granger, who still sat slumped next to the tree.

"Well come on then, we should be off. I don't feel right staying around in one place for too long. Zabini might already be at the stadium."

Granger tilted her head back, taking a deep breath. "Yes, right." She went to place her hands on the ground to raise herself up, wincing as she tried to move the arm still hanging awkwardly across her abdomen. Draco turned, feeling a small pang of guilt for not offering to fix her injury like she had his. Perhaps later, if they got somewhere safe.

He could see the effect magic had on her, and it was quite alarming. He was not willing to put himself in the same position of weakness. Granger was a tough witch, he'd give her that. She could hold out a bit longer.

His eyes swept the small clearing nestled between a few tall trees, the shadows heavy where the sunlight did not make its way through all the branches overhead. Draco's eyes settled on an object nearby.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, limping forward to where the splintered pieces of his Thunderbolt lay. "She was brand-new too!"

He leaned down to lift up the golden handle, flinging it against the base of a nearby tree as frustration mounted inside of him.

Everything that had just happened defied everything he understood about the world. All his life things had operated in an expected way. You cast a charm, and if incanted correctly, it worked. You fly a broom with any amount of skill, which Draco was quite certain he had plenty of, and it would take you where you wished. And if you bloody _died_ , you did not get back up and start trying to eat your mates.

"What the hell happened, Granger?" he asked, turning to her, stomping forward awkwardly on the one leg to where she had stumbled to her feet.

She lifted her eyes, looking at him as if he were daft, but the expression failing as she was too exhausted to give it the proper energy it required. "We fell off your damn broom Malfoy, what did you think happened? Your leg was broken." Her voice came out hoarse, not carrying its usual Gryffindor bite.

Draco's eyes flitted to her arm and back up to her face, noticing she did not mention her own injuries as if ignoring them might make them go away. _Just as well_ , he thought, since he still did not wish to bring them any more attention at that time.

"Yes, I know that. I mean this - you, me, in the middle of the bloody forest, and muggles chewing off Parkinson's leg." His voice rose in pitch, a bit of his hysteria making its way into his voice as the altogether _wrongness_ of everything started to occur to him. "It's not _right_. All of it."

She scoffed, lifting her nose in the way he recognized, confirming his assessment that she could withstand a lot. "You think if I bloody knew that, I would be here with you? Standing in the middle of the forest?" She gestured outwards with one arm wincing again as she rustled her injury again.

He started to speak, but then a large snap sounded behind him. Granger's eyes widened and shot over his shoulder just as the feeling that something was right behind him tingled up his spine.

"Draco, behind you! Watch out!"


	9. Chapter 8: Bloody Campers

**Chapter 8**

Hermione stared in horror, her heart beating quickly in her chest as behind Draco lurched the form of a blond woman, her arm hanging in a bloody mess down the side of her. There were several more chunks were missing from her body, the clear signs of teeth marks around the wounds.

She was wearing an active wear shirt and bike shorts, though now the bright colored material was tainted with the blood of the woman wearing it.

Hermione's body was still feeling exhausted, from barely getting any sleep since the night she found Ron's corpse eating his mother's flesh, to the night back at the Leaky Cauldron, then the long broom ride with Malfoy to the moorland she had already felt worn out.

Now she had depleted what was left of her energy trying to heal Malfoy.

Why had it taken so much of her strength? She had never felt this way using magic before. It was like it had been ripped out of her, and the well that held it within her was drying up more and more.

Hermione didn't have time to think about that.

"Draco! Move!"

The woman was reaching out gnarled and to grasp his shoulder. Malfoy unfroze and jumped to the side, narrowly missing the rabid corpses snapping teeth as she lunged at him.

"Where the bloody hell did she come from!" Malfoy exclaimed, wincing on his barely healed leg as she scrambled back up to his feet, the woman changing directions for him again.

He backed up into a tree, a dire mistake he realized instantly, as the woman started towards him again, and he had nowhere to go.

Hermione glanced around desperately, looking for something, anything. There was a large branch sitting on the ground that could do some damage, but she would need to lift it with both arms.

She looked down at her arm cradled to her side.

She couldn't just do nothing. Malfoy was an arse, but he was all she had.

Ducking down as the undead woman approached Malfoy, caging him in as she frantically tried to maneuver out of her hold, pushing her back with his hands and just barely keeping her snapping jaws from reaching him.

Swallowing down what she knew would be a scream of pain, Hermione gripped the heavy branch, grinding down her teeth as she swung it around, knocking the woman away from Draco,

But, with her struggling hold and her now excruciating pain in her arm, it had not been forceful enough to stop her. Hermione dropped the branch, feeling the bones in her arm separating further and letting out a cry of pain.

Unfazed the woman stood back up, turning and latching her eyes on Hermione. Hermione was still letting out small moans, cradling her arm to herself as now she found herself trapped. She looked up to see Malfoy's large grey eyes watching her, then flickering out to the trees.

Escape. Malfoy was going to escape.

She was alone.

Readying herself for her fight, knowing that she way now alone, Hermione clenched her fists. She had nothing, and now she had stumbled too far to even try lifting the branch again.

Not that she thought she could.

The woman was gurgling in her throat, her eyes having gone dull in her death. Little red veins were burst in the, and her face – which might have at one point been pretty, was twisted in a snarl as she snapped her teeth in Hermione's direction. She reached out her good arm, grabbing a fistful of Hermione's top, the clothing ripping in the woman's hands as she tried to dive away.

She couldn't escape.

Hermione chanced a look up, Malfoy was gone.

Knowing that she had no other hope, Hermione raised her fist, bashing it into the woman's head. But, the woman had been freshly killed, and her skull was still hard.

She staggered, yet continued towards Hermione again.

Hermione's wand was heavy in her pocket, yet she already knew there was no hope in using it. Even saying _Avada Kedavra_ did nothing. They just got back up – they were already dead.

Readying herself for another punch, Hermione took a deep steadying breath. She tried to focus, but her blood was pumping too quickly through her veins. She was vibrating with fear as the monster in front of her advanced again.

There was a blur of movement, then Hermione saw a large stone rock come down on the woman's head.

The woman fell down, then there was Malfoy, smashing it into the woman repeatedly. He was breathing heavily, and a line of sweat glistened down his face.

His dress shirt was torn and blood splattered, the head of the woman a mess on the ground as she finally stopped moving, her brains exposed through her smashed skull. He lifted his eyes to Hermione.

"That's for healing my leg."

He then turned around and lost the contents of his stomach on the ground beside them.

Hermione shook her head, feeling the rush of adrenaline leave her and tears welled in her eyes. She turned away, sniffing in the fresh air, and wiping her face before Malfoy could see.

She had been certain he would leave her, and she was incredibly relieved that he hadn't.

Maybe it had been for his own reasons, reasons Hermione couldn't contemplate, but somewhere in her thoughts, the idea that Malfoy wasn't so bad after all started to bloom.

Before she could think too deeply on that, however, she looked out into the trees and took a step back.

"Malfoy! We need to get going. _Now_."

"Just give me a second Granger, I'm only recovering from saving your arse." he replied sardonically.

Had it been under different circumstances, she would have pointed out that she saved him first.

" _Seriously Malfoy_ ," she said turning, "we need to go!"

She reached to him, grabbing him by the shoulder to lift him to his feet.

"What the hell are you talking about Gr..." he started to ask then looked up and saw what had her scared.

"We just can't get a fucking break, now can we?" he said in a monotone, reaching his feet, and now grabbing on to her, pulling her as her started to move away.

For, behind them now was an entire family of campers. All four of them, the parents and their teenaged children were advancing through the trees, bloody bowels hanging from their stomachs, mouths twisted in an unsatiated need for human flesh.

"How did they even find us?" Malfoy asked, pushing away tree branches, making them rustle and snap as they ran, his hand gripping hers in a tight vice-like grip as he pulled her along. She looked ahead, seeing the fear plain on his face.

"I think they can hear us, would you stop making such a racket?" she replied between her rapid breaths.

"That doesn't make sense."

"Well, what else do you have, Malfoy? I'm just as confused as you are," she grumbled.

She shook her head.

Any books they had made about these things, she had not been reading. She felt like it was the day she had learned she was a witch all over again.

The branches continued to whip by them as they ran, but Malfoy did not release Hermione's hand, his fingers digging into her flesh, unwilling to let her go.

She didn't want to be alone, either.

Small cuts gathered on her face and arms, as they tried to take careful steps and choose routes less populated by trees. The problem was, the easier for them that it was to move; the easier it was for their pursuers to follow.

Hermione glanced behind herself. Even though they had gained some ground on them, the lifeless family continued after them. The young daughter could have only been thirteen, her mouth a bloody mess as gore dripped down her chin, her eyes set hungrily in Hermione's direction.

A branch came out of nowhere under her feet, causing Hermione to stumble forward, knocking into Malfoy as they both crashed to the ground.

Her face was an inch from his as she looked into his eyes, the pupils dilated in fear. He made a growl of frustration. "Watch where you are going, Granger!"

Malfoy jumped back to his feet, reaching down and pulling her with him as they started running again.

"I don't have time to with you dragging me along like a stuffed animal, you dolt."

He grunted, but his breaths were too rapid now as he increased his speed to answer.

Hermione looked behind them again. Their pursuers had gotten closer.

"How are they moving so fast?" she gasped as she struggled to breathe.

"They aren't Granger. You bloody slowed us down!" Malfoy wheezed.

A painful cramp stabbed into her side, and her injured arm swung out bumping into a tree as they passed. She let out a cry of pain, yet snapped her lips together, trying to hold it inside of her as they continued to run.

She felt it more than anything when Malfoy started to slow, his hand sweaty where in held her, his grip slipping on her wrist.

"I can't keep going, we have to try to kill them Malfoy," she sputtered when they stopped, bending over in an effort not to vomit. There were now in a small clearing, a trailer beside them.

The blood on the ground indicated that if the campers following them hadn't originated at this site, there were more just like them to come.

Malfoy was breathing heavily through his nose, looking around at the trees and the grass for something. _Anything_.

They needed a weapon.

The bushes rustled and she looked up to see the teenage girl and her older brother just reaching the edge of the clearing, their steps stumbling as they walked over the thick greenery towards them.

The boy's chest had a screwdriver through it as if he had been the first to turn and one of his family members had been the ones to try to fend him off, not realizing it was a blow to the head that would stop him.

Hermione didn't have time to sympathize with the family's tragic tale, though she could sense there was one.

Hermione and Malfoy backed up. She looked side to side, seeing the camping gear strewn around the site. There were the remnants of a campfire beside it.

"Over there, maybe we can use something from that."

Malfoy looked at her with a moment of hesitation. There was also a great amount of blood splattered all around the area.

"It's that, or we keep running," she said turning and moving towards the gear. She heard Malfoy's steps following her as they reached the grisly camp site. She saw a body mostly eaten lying on the ground and had to look away or risk throwing up. She didn't have time for that.

The thing that really got her was that it was smaller, and looked like a child no older than eight.

Under a pile of tarps, she saw what she was hoping for, and she threw aside the blood-soaked covering and pulled out the small set of tools which was already opened. There was already a screwdriver missing, confirming her assessment that the campers currently after them had started out here.

She pulled out a hammer, the other screwdrivers too small to wield as a weapon. Then she looked over, seeing a stump on the ground and nearly shouted with glee.

"Malfoy, grab the axe!"

"The what?" He looked at her confused, his eyes lingering on the family which was now dangerously close.

"That sharp thing! Over beside you, in the stump of wood!"

He looked over, his eyes widening. He bent down, using a foot to unlatch it and it hung heavily in his hand as he gazed down at it.

"Do muggles usually keep so many sharp things laying around?"

She shook her head in exasperation. "Count your lucky stars they did!"

The family was nearly on them now, and Hermione knew they were outnumbered.

Bracing herself, Hermione stepped forward. She looked into the eyes of the girl and for a moment the image of her. The real image of her, the alive human one flashed before her eyes.

She hesitated.

Beside her she could make out Malfoy lunging forward, his axe raised as he sunk it down into the older boy's skull.

But still, Hermione couldn't do it. The hammer hung in her hands as she backed away.

She had been alive. She had only been a girl. Her teeth snapped at Hermione as she moved closer.

Ron had been alive, and she had loved him.

Just because she was this way, didn't mean killing should be any easier.

Hermione took another step back.

"Hermione! What the hell are you doing!"

Snapping out of it, she looked up to see Malfoy's pale frightened eyes as he gripped the axe tightly in his hand, the father of the family advancing towards him. Hermione looked ahead to see the girl nearly on her, her mother close behind.

She moved back, nearly tripping on something squishy under her feet. Her stomach lurched realizing what it was.

They weren't human, they weren't alive. If they were, the indistinguishable child behind her wouldn't be a bloody mess on the ground.

With a hard swing, Hermione brought the back of the hammer down on the girls head. It smashed through her skull with a large splatter of blood as it shot out to spray across her face. Hermione kept her mouth firmly shut.

The girl fell, Hermione having bashed right through to her brain in the one hard strike.

She reached down to pull the hammer free. She pulled, but it was stuck. Looking up she saw the mother only a few paces from her. Draco was busy fighting off the father, which was dangerously close to him as well.

She didn't have a weapon. She pulled again desperately on the lodged hammer, but it wouldn't budge free.

"Malfoy! Granger! Over here!"

Hermione's eyes darted to the side, never having expected to hear that voice again.

There was Blaise Zabini, broom in hand and standing next to the trailer.


	10. Chapter 9: Lucky

**Chapter 9**

Draco was cutting the air in frenzied strikes as the man proceeded to move towards him. He faintly heard his name being called by a familiar voice, but he was too wrapped up in preventing the monster currently snapping his teeth at him like a furious doxy. The problem was, he knew the antidote for Doxy venom. He wasn't sure there was one for whatever it was that infected the man.

And if he let him get close enough, the man would eat him alive.

A shout of triumph escaped his lips as he finally hit the man square on the head. However, the hit wasn't deep enough. The skull cracked around the axe's blade, but it was not far in enough to cause the significant damage he needed to the man's brain. Draco made to jerk his arm back, pulling his weapon. But it was lodged and unmoving as he tried to pry it free, the stick leather handle slipping in his sweaty palms.

Draco's eyes grew wide.

The man appeared to take on a maniacal grin, snapping at him only inches away as Draco held the axe in his hand, the handle slipping closer to him as his grip gave way against the strength of the hungry undead man. He reached out to Draco, trying to pull him towards his gurgling and bloody mouth.

"Malfoy! Over here!"

That voice, He knew that voice, he had started to think he may never hear the narcissistic Slytherin's drawl again...

"Seriously, Malfoy, c'mon!"

Now it was Granger.

Darting his eyes towards the two, he briefly glimpsed Granger and Zabini next to the ladder on the side of the trailer. A woman was stumbling towards them, falling over the body of the younger girl with a hammer sticking out of her head.

A hand landed on his arm in a vice-like grip, pulling the wizard towards him as Draco's distracted eyes had been elsewhere.

Panicking, Draco tried to shake him off, nearly falling on his backside as he stepped back blindly over some of the scattered camping supplies. He could hear the man's blood-filled mouth gurgling as it breathed air into dead, nonworking lungs.

"Draco!" Granger's voice was frantic, likely because of the other muggle nearing them where they waited for him. Draco swallowed his fear and gave the axe a hard jerk, pulling it free, his arm flying and nearly losing the grip on his weapon as he turned to sprint. He stumbled over the uneven ground, reaching where his comrades were climbing the side of the trailer.

Draco took to the ladder just behind Granger. Her feet slipped, slowing down her ascent as she tried to quickly get to the top. Draco had to pause his upward climb, just as he felt a hand grip his leg.

"Bloody hell!"

He looked down to see the woman. Her eyes were pale as they looked up at him, her gnarled hand gripping his leg as she pulled it to her mouth.

 _Oh hell no._

Draco kicked out, connecting his foot with the woman's head. Her grip loosened just as Granger threw herself over the top of the trailer. Draco scrambled up behind her, breathing heavily as he looked down at his legs from where he sat, which were still unbitten and unharmed.

"How the bloody hell are you still alive, Zabini," Draco gasped out as the undead spouses now reached up towards them from the side of the vehicle. They somehow knew that their party had moved up there, but they were too dumb to figure out how to climb up and get them.

 _Thank Merlin_ for that.

"No thanks to your lot," the disgruntled Slytherin replied. "I fought off Parkinson. Stabbed her right through the eye with my own wand, then flew after you."

Draco turned to Zabini in surprise. "Your broom works?"

"Barely." Zabini furrowed his dark brows. "It kept glitching, and I would have to stop and give it a few minutes on the ground then try again. I was lucky enough to not run into any more of them _things_. I even flew over some houses that still looked unaffected by everything. Yet again, I also saw some neighborhoods where those monsters are everywhere. The whole world is going to absolute hell I tell you."

Draco frowned. Was nowhere safe anymore?

"Eh, you two," Granger cut in.

"What is it, Gryffindor."

Draco turned to look at Granger. Half her face was bloody, her arm still hanging awkwardly beside her.

He pursed his lips, considering how much that must have been hurting her. She had nearly broken it again trying to lift that branch before. He still didn't know what possessed him in going back for her, he had been free to get away.

There was just something about being alone, even if he was stuck with a crippled, and _annoying_ , know-it-all.

He also just couldn't forget about how she had saved him not once, but _twice_ now.

"That over there," she said nodding towards the trees on their other side. Her jaw was clenched and her expression looked exhausted and wary.

Following her gaze, Draco looked out to see that they weren't still in the middle of the forest, but on the edge of a large campground. The trailer they sat upon was located in a private corner, a small gathering of trees bordering a path just large enough to fit the vehicle through.

Ignoring the two walking dead muggles, Draco observed that they also weren't the only ones on the campground. Though there was no one in sight, he could see a few trailers and even one set of tents.

The campground likely hadn't been as packed as it would have been during peak season, but a few people were out risking the cooling weather.

A breeze cut through the area, the open tent flaps rustling in the wind. Just visible to his eyes at the distance was the unmistakable splatters of blood on the walls of the tent.

Wherever they were, it had been affected by whatever was going on.

So much for going somewhere uninhabited and safe.

Draco cursed. "Where the hell are we?"

"Deep in Dartmoor National Park, I reckon," Zabini replied. "I remember flying over Devon before it got all green. The pitch should be around here-"

"Are we even _close_ to the Quidditch pitch?" Draco burst out in frustration. His theory had been that the anti-muggle wards would mean the place was empty. However, now as he contemplated the decision, he realized how dim-witted it had been.

If his broom wouldn't even work properly, who's to say the wards were still up and functional?

"Look, over there," Granger said, pointing with her good arm. In the distance passed the campsite, he could make another gathering of trees, some structures, and running water. "Looks like we are near the River Dart. It runs through the moor... my parents took me out here when I was young."

Draco heard a sadness in her voice as she referred to her parents.

That reminded him, with everything going one, how were his own parents?

Funny how thoughts of his mother and father hadn't even occurred to him until then.

He ran a hand through his hair, the pale blonde locks having slipped from the neat style he had them in to brush his chin. It had grown longer since his Hogwarts days – as if he were trying to distance himself from the child he had been once before.

"The Pitch wasn't anywhere near the water, if I recall," Zabini stated. The trailer under them rocked slightly as the male muggle banged into it.

"Granger, do you know where it is from here?" Draco asked, turning to the Gryffindor witch.

She frowned. "I've only ever apparated there or portkeyed in."

Draco could barely hide his shock. "Granger...you don't know?"

She turned her sharp eyes to him. "Well, you were the one flying us there, Malfoy. I would have hoped at least you knew where it was."

She had him there. He shot a gaze down at the gurgling muggles. They continued to reach their clawed hands up to them in an attempt to reach them. Their hissing sounds were grinding against his nerves. They couldn't just sit there all day, waiting for the two muggles to topple their protection over.

"I figured once we were overtop it I would recognize it easy enough," he muttered in response.

"You realize it probably looks different now. They had to replant and rebuild the stadium..." she trailed off, likely remembering how the last cup they had all attended ended.

They were silent a moment, remembering how the death eaters had ransacked the attendants. Draco remembered how he had mocked Granger, saying he'd laugh at her when the death eaters caught her.

He felt a tingle of revulsion for the daft idiot he had been before. Holding that attitude towards muggle-borns hadn't done him, or his family, any good.

Draco glanced at Granger out of the corner of his eye. He could practically see her mind working as she tried to think a way out of this predicament for them.

She was a fighter, probably more so than him – he'd give her that.

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. They needed a way out of this. Sure - they could likely manage to kill the two dead things reaching up for them, but what then?

He looked back to where he could just make out the river. If he listened carefully, he could hear its rushing water. Following it could lead them to somewhere more familiar, opposed to wandering aimlessly through the forest. But to get there, they had to cross the campsite – something Draco wasn't all too thrilled to do.

He looked to Zabini, who was looking at them expectantly. He was standing up on the trailer, his arms crossed and eyebrows raised as he watched Draco and Granger think.

"How did you find us?"

"Luck, if you'd call it that," he answered. He then laughed softly, "I was flying on overhead, then landed just a little bit out of here, trying to remember where the damn Pitch was. I wasn't even sure you two would be there. Then I heard a commotion from where I was at, followed the noise to see you two taking on the dead ones."

Draco pursed his lips. Pure luck, that was.

He just hoped there was more of that to be had if they were ever going to survive.

Granger nodded, standing to her feet. She winced as she tried to balance herself. He only saw the pain in her eyes for a moment, until it was gone and a hard determination was there instead.

She looked them both in the eyes individually then looked back at the river.

"I have a plan."


	11. Chapter 10: Scars

**Chapter 10**

"Granger, have you gone completely mental?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Your plan," he replied. "It's rubbish."

Hermione straightened and fixed Malfoy with a hard stare. Who was he to judge her plan? She didn't exactly see him providing them with any ideas. They were currently stuck on top of a trailer with two hungry corpses reaching for their ankles and nowhere to go.

And, as Hermione's arm radiated pain, she needed to get somewhere safe so she could deal with her own injuries. Malfoy sighed deeply and threw his head back, brushing his unruly silver hair off his face.

"Well, how is it you plan on getting us out of this, then? Or did you plan to just sit up here until those two down there figure out how to climb up?" she said, using her good arm to indicate their two pursuers.

Malfoy shot them a sideways glance and frowned. "But having Zabini fly out there to scout for us is a terrible idea. Then on top of that, why have you and me take these two on alone, then go out there on foot? For one, his broom might not even work. And secondly, if he is flying, why not just have him ferry us back and forth to safety on the bloody thing?"

Zabini, who had been frowning since Hermione started talking about her plan, surprised her by coming to her defense. "Well, first off, we might both fall into a whole bunch of 'em that way. At least with Granger's plan its just one of us at risk. Also, unless we get eyes on the land there's no way to know where 'safe' is." He shot her a glance. "However, I'm not really a fan of putting myself at risk for you two." He crossed his arms and raised his dark eyebrows at her.

Malfoy scoffed. "You? At risk? Sorry mate, but you aren't the one running around fighting off those... _things_. You could just bugger off and leave us here surrounded if the mood suited you."

Zabini shot Malfoy a hard look that spoke to a rivalry between the two Slytherins. "I'm not _you_ , Malfoy. We both know that's what you'd do, which is why Granger probably didn't choose to put your arse on the line knowing you'd up and leave us both if given the chance."

Malfoy sneered and looked at her. "That true, Granger?"

Hermione pursed her lips. None of them would get anywhere if these two kept up their arguing. A pang of sadness went through her as she found that the two of them reminded her of Harry and Ron.

One man who was lost to her forever and the other was still a mystery. She hoped Harry was okay.

She just reminded herself that if Harry could do one thing, he persisted – he survived.

Hermione straightened. "Well, for one, Malfoy, you remember the last time the two of us were up on a broom? We both nearly died from the fall alone. Now, Zabini didn't have quite the same problems we did. I suspect it has to do with the weakened magic in the broom being better able the support one of us compared to the combined weight of two of us."

Malfoy furrowed his brows and grunted. But he didn't disagree, for all that they knew, it made the most sense.

"And secondly, as Zabini put it, we don't know how much more there are out there. Just going out there blind would be idiocy, don't you think?"

Malfoy's nostrils flared, but he didn't agree or disagree.

"And yes, I figured Zabini was less likely than you to abandon us, and quite frankly, I can't fly a broom."

That made both men pause. It was rare for Hermione Granger to admit she did not know how to do something.

Hermione frowned. "Well, then, unless you two have anything else to say to waste time, let's be on with it. Good thing you still have your axe, Malfoy. Let's be done with these two."

She looked down briefly at the muggles but tore her eyes away. Seeing the blood soaking their chins, and knowing that one of their children had likely been the benefactor of their meal, filled her with horror.

Yet, she had still found it hard to kill them. If it had been Ron, she wouldn't have ever been able to do it. He was one of them, and a part of her hoped there was a way to fix this, whatever it was.

After all, at which point did they stop being human, and alive, and turn into monsters? They walked, and for the most part judging by their rattling breaths, breathed. How were they the ones to judge that they were no longer alive? What right did they have to just kill them mindlessly?

Yet, as her eyes drifted over the blood-soaked patch of grass, where nothing but the bloodied bones of a child rested, she knew that only a true monster could ever do that.

They were monsters. Hermione clenched her eyes shut, trying to banish the memory from her mind. _Ron was a monster too_.

"Well, Granger, are you going to just sit there and watch?"

Hermione's eyes snapped back to Malfoy where he sat in a crouch, his hand ready with the axe as he hovered over the woman. She was reaching up to him with gurgling hisses. Malfoy's face was stony in an attempt to hide his fear, as he observed the dead woman.

She looked over to Zabini who was already readying his broom. She nodded to him. "I don't have a weapon, Malfoy. Once you kill those two I'll find something on the ground."

Zabini took to the air and they both watched him fly off silently. Malfoy's frown deepened.

"Rubbish plan, I tell you."

" _Merlin_ , Malfoy, just knock it off."

He raised his eyes to her, looking somewhat startled by her harsh tone. She continued on."The world has gone to complete shit, in case you haven't noticed _._ We need to get to the river, as it is the only way we can figure our way out of here. Also, we need to check some of those cars and tents for supplies because we are smack dab in the middle of nowhere thanks to _you_."

Malfoy's slate eyes darkened and his jaw clenched. "If I recall, it was your bloody plan to fly on out the window back at the Leaky Cauldron. A whole lot of good _that_ did us."

Hermione exhaled, nostrils flaring. "We don't have time for this. Would you just kill these bastards and be done with it?"

"Bloody know-it-all, always has to be right," he muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.

He rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing an oddly shaped scar on his forearm. Hermione's eyes lingered on it, then darted away, realizing what it was. She absently placed her hand on her broken arm, her fingers lingering over her own scar from the war. The one that would forever mark her with the cruel name he himself had called behind her back.

Two different scars, two different sides of the war.

It was strange how she now was forced to trust him. She had no choice.

Yet, as his eyes hardened with determination and he brought the axe down on the woman's head, she knew he too had been forced to survive. He may have taken the wrong path, and made some choices she had considered cowardly, but it had transformed him in its own way.

He hadn't called her a mudblood once, and he had even saved her life, even if it hadn't been his first choice.

That had to count for something, right?

"What did I tell you Granger? Terrible idea."

Hermione glared at him sharply, hoping she could silence him with her eyes as her heartbeat started to beat wildly in her chest. This was not good. She rose a finger to her lips, hoping Malfoy would understand.

They were hiding on one side of a tent, listening to the gurgling sucking sounds on the other side. A dead muggle was there just a few feet away from them, feasting off something that left the grass red and glistening.

It was feasting on some _one_. She just hoped they were already dead.

Malfoy's eyes were darting to the thin material of the tent then back to hers. She could see the fear on his face as much as she knew he was trying to hide it. There was little way of making sense of this world they had stumbled into.

Fortunately, the dead man was so consumed with his meal, it had yet to notice them even as they had traipsed around recklessly. They had been trying to see if they could find some food supplies as they waited for Zabini to return and lead them in a safe direction. They had managed to find a small cooler and a bag, which the packed with all the non-perishables they could.

She had just spied a flashlight next to the tent they were now beside when they noticed they weren't alone.

Hermione nodded towards Malfoy's hand where he held the axe. When she lifted her eyes back up his face was tight and frowning.

Draco Malfoy wasn't exactly the heroic or self-sacrificing type. Quite the opposite really, but as his eyes dropped down to where her broken arm hung limply at her side, she saw something in his eyes flicker.

And perhaps, it was the realization that if Hermione went around the side with the axe, they might as well both have been dead, but after a deep breath he nodded and started making his way around the side of the tent. Every little stone he disturbed sounded like an alarm as he slowly approached the dead muggle and left her line of sight.

Unable to watch, she clenched the fist of her good hand so tight she drew blood. She looked to the sky for some sign that Zabini was returning. The sky was barren, so with a deep anxious breath, she shifted her eyes to scan her surroundings, now much more alert than she had been before while she had been searching with Malfoy.

Behind the tent, she heard a scuffle. The wheezing sounds of the dead man were rising in pitch, indicating it had noticed Malfoy. She heard a heavy breath from Malfoy, then a slick thud, slowly followed by another heavy one as something hit the ground. There was a pause, the faint sound of wet breathing then, another thud followed by silence.

Alarmed, Hermione tensed, grabbing the fire poker she had found and held it in her good hand as she heard footsteps coming back around the tent. There was an unevenness to them that made her heart stop, for she could not tell the difference between the lumbered steps of the dead, or Malfoy limping on his bad leg.

She let out a breath of relief a moment later when Malfoy returned, his pale hair now splattered with blood as it had smeared across his face. He was pale, his eyes not meeting hers as he returned to sit down with a thump.

"I killed them. I didn't see any others."

Hermione winced, feeling shame that she had made Malfoy kill so many times. She looked to her arm frustrated that she was useless. She also knew she would just be a hindrance if she did not at least set it soon.

Hermione looked around, she had all the supplies needed to make a brace and a sling, so that she could at least stabilize it. She may not yet be able to magically heal it, but there were still the muggle ways.

"Malfoy?"

He grunted his acknowledgment.

"I need you to set my arm. It is too painful for me to do it myself."

Hermione stood, and started to gather what she needed. She grabbed a shirt from one of the campers abandoned bags and broke down two straight sticks. That would have to do.

"What?"

"You need to realign the broken parts of my bone in my arm so I can stabilize it and sling it. I'll need your help."

"I'm not sure I can..."

"Please. It will only get more painful and infected if I continue to neglect it. As it is, it may not heal right."

His eyes were hard but as he looked at her something in them seemed to give in. He darted them away. "Fine, how do I do this Granger? I'm not familiar with your muggle forms of medicine."

She smiled sadly, her eyes strained from spending hours in pain with little to no sleep. "It's best we get used to it. We might need it now."

Malfoy didn't meet her eyes. Pale stubble lined his blood smeared jaw as he gave a tight nod. At least to her, a life without magic was something fathomable. To him, a pure-blood wizard who had been surrounded by magic his whole life, not being able to use it must have felt like a part of himself that was missing.

And, once she showed him what he had to do to help her, she did everything she could not to scream as he pushed her broken bones back together. His pale eyes were strained as he lifted his to hers. Through her pain, she saw a new darkness there, that if she looked in the mirror she knew would also be in hers.

This was not a war Hermione was prepared for, all her years of dedication to magic and knowledge didn't do her any good in this new world.

But, she did know one thing; for her, Malfoy, and Zabini - it was their life now.


	12. Chapter 11: Lost

**Chapter 11**

Draco sat back, looking at Granger as she finished tying off her sling. Her broken arm was now braced with two sticks and wrapped with ripped shirts neatly, another dull blue shirt used the tie sling over her shoulder. She used her teeth to pull the last knot tight and set her lips in grim satisfaction.

She looked up, her chocolate colored eyes meeting his and he darted his away, embarrassed to be caught looking at her. There was something in the set of her shoulders, a fierceness in her eyes that spoke of a will to keep going, to keep surviving. The war had made a warrior out of her.

He couldn't help but think the same war had made him a coward.

"That all set, then?" he asked, cutting through the morbid silence.

Granger's eyes darted to the sky then back to him. "It'll do. Magic, even a little bit would be better."

Draco shifted uncomfortably. He felt a pang of guilt for not healing her.

He fingered his wand, which continued to sit dormant in his pocket. Was it really because he feared to become weak from using magic?

Or, was he just afraid that it wouldn't work at all?

Magic. It had been a part of him for so long, it was who he was. He was a wizard, and a good one. If he didn't have his magic anymore, was he still even himself? Was he still Draco Malfoy?

He was afraid to find out. Draco couldn't fathom a future without magic.

Draco fisted his hands. He was already weak, he was afraid of the moment he went to use his wand, to cast a spell – and nothing happened.

Granger, now, she wasn't afraid of that. Maybe because she came from muggle heritage, and maybe because she was simply stronger than him. But no matter what this new, fucked up world threw at her. She would face it, and she would fight it.

Deep inside, he found himself jealous. He wished that he had that in him, right then. He needed some of her confidence. He didn't know what had happened back at the Burrow, but he could see how it haunted her eyes. Regardless, she didn't collapse into a ball and give up. Before he had made the choice to help her back in the clearing, when the muggle woman had almost had her, she wasn't ready to give up. She would have fought even the certainty of death.

Draco wasn't so sure he could do the same.

And maybe that's why when she looked at him earlier, the weapon in his hand, knowing he was more able bodied, he had complied. It had been against his nature to put himself at risk like that. To go around the corner to find one of those _things_ feasting on a fresh, still alive, human being. But he had done it because, without Granger, he was alone.

He didn't want to be alone. Not in this world, not ever. And now, Granger, she was one of the only living human beings that he had seen in the last twenty-four hours, the others most of which were already dead.

He needed to keep her close, he needed to keep her alive. To survive, to fight. SHw as smart and skilled. She knew muggle first aid. She was useful, that was why he needed her.

At least, that's what he told himself.

"Oy! Granger, Malfoy!" came Zabini's frantic voice. He looked up to see Zabini coming down, his broom sputtering out behind him. Out of instinct, Draco reached over, pulling Granger to him so Zabini just narrowly missed her as he crashed to the ground, tangling himself in the already half destroyed tent behind them.

Granger's eyes were a mere centimeter from his, wide with shock from where she lay on top of him. Draco shifted as she pulled herself away, balancing on her one good arm and raising to her feet. He eye darted back to Draco as she straightened herself out, then she looked away.

"Thank you," she said softly.

Draco grunted his response, suddenly feeling embarrassed and he wasn't all too sure why.

"What did you see, Zabini?"

Zabini straightened himself out, pulling the material of the tent off of him as he untangled himself from the material and poles. He frowned, his dark eyes lingering on the two dead muggles behind it before he turned to face them.

"About ten or fifteen of those things in a big group." He pointed out towards the river. "They are all up around there, which is also the direction of the stadium. I found it, but to get to it we have the follow the river, and ultimately cut it pretty close to the lot of them. However..."

Draco was frowning as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What? Sounds like we need to go the long way around to avoid that whole mess."

"Well... there's them, then nothing. No other signs of life, and no more of 'em."

Draco furrowed his brows. "Yes, Zabini, that's the whole point of coming out here."

Granger tilted her head, a contemplative look in her eyes. She rose a finger to her lips as she thought deeply.

"We have to kill them. All of them."

Zabini's face was grim as he nodded slowly. Draco looked at them aghast.

"What? Have you two completely lost it? We don't have to kill them, we just go the way they aren't, then come back around and head for the stadium. Easy as that!"

Granger shook her head. "No, there's no way to know they have moved unless Zabini goes back up in the sky." She held out her hand, pointing towards his broom, the brush portion of it slightly singed and smoking. Zabini looked down at it too, his expression solemn. "Which doesn't look like it's going to work again anytime soon."

"So, what? We are just going to bulldoze through a whole pack of them in case they _move_?" Draco said somewhat hysterically, looking between his two companions.

They were both completely mental. He was not having it.

"Well, not just that," Zabini chimed in. He looked towards Granger hesitantly. "If we plan to make the stadium a base, if we take them all out the area will be more or less safe. At least for a while. We could stay out here for some time, let whatever this is play out."

Draco's shoulders slumped. That...that kind of made sense.

And he hated that. If they tried to take them all on, it was likely they wouldn't survive.

But... If they did survive, maybe, just maybe they could remember what is felt like to be safe. It had only been a day ago the last time he had felt it, but it already felt like a lifetime.

Slowly he rose his eyes to both Granger and Zabini who were looking at each other grimly. Granger had one arm in a sling, and a long metal fire poker in her other good hand. Zabini was more or less well off but in need of a weapon. Draco had a slight limp and an axe.

The question was, could they take on all of them? Just the three of them? They were tired, injured, and lacking any skilled use of a weapon after years of relying on their wands. Would they make it through this alive?

Granger's eyes looked towards the river, and he could see the gears working in her mind. Draco followed her gaze, an idea of his own reluctantly forming as he contemplated what he was committing himself to doing.

He didn't like it, but the chance to be somewhere away from them, knowing that they weren't lingering somewhere unseen, ready to jump out and attack them once they turned their backs was something he couldn't pass by. He just wanted to feel safe, even if it was short-lived.

Maybe what Zabini said was right, they could make a safe home out here for awhile, let this bizarre illness pass them by. Give the world some time, and maybe it would figure itself out.

Draco exhaled slowly, his reluctance still apparent in his demeanor. "We take them out, one by one. Sneak up on them from behind, take off as many strays as we can before we have to take on the group. Then, maybe we will stand a chance against better odds. From what I have seen, they are pretty thick. They can hear us, so we have to be quiet."

Granger looked at him and nodded slowly. "Great idea, Draco. It just might work."

Draco nodded grimly. In theory, it was a good plan. But would it be in practice?

As Zabini leaned over and started digging through the supplies, and Draco watched as Granger joined him, grabbing another bag and loading it with necessities, he figured they would find out soon enough.

With a deep sigh, he bent over and started to make another bag, if they were going to do this, survive, they needed whatever they could get.

For, he had no idea how long this new life of his would last.


	13. Chapter 12: Grandpa Alfie

**Chapter 12**

Hermione crouched down low to the ground, taking in slow shallow breaths, afraid that she might in anyway alert the two undead in front of her.

She spared a glance to Malfoy where he leaned against the tree to her right. His blonde hair was loose around his face, his grey eyes creased in exhaustion as he watched the two muggles cautiously. Behind them, Zabini was behind another tree, ready to strike once Malfoy gave the signal. He had managed to find himself a rather large kitchen knife in the camping gear they had searched before nearing the river.

She just hoped Malfoy's plan worked.

Right now they had two of them together, which were better odds than before, but was still not quite as desirable as one. Part of her couldn't help but wish they could proceed without killing them all, but as long as they roamed the forest, gathering together in a large group, Hermione at the two Slytherin men weren't safe.

Hermione really needed to feel safe. She needed to sleep, and she needed to figure out how to tend to her arm. The makeshift sling they had put together would hold, but if she did not take the time to tend to it might heal incorrectly. Also... after she had tried to lift the branch earlier to help Malfoy, she had noticed a strange numbness in her fingers and wrist.

Hermione knew that couldn't be good.

The sun had hidden behind dark clouds, the cool October air settling around them as the sky threatened to rain down upon them. She figured trying to fight off the cannibalistic muggles would be all that much harder should it start raining.

The muggles, an older male with greying hair covered in blood from where it has splattered up from his neck was lingering by where they stood, his eyes twitching around at random as he paused. Hermione sucked in an involuntary breath, holding her fire poker tighter.

The River Dart was to their left, hopefully masking any sounds she might have been making as her heart thudded loudly in her chest. Even though she had faced several of these monsters already, she still found herself covered in a sheen of sweat as raw fear shot adrenaline to her tired muscles.

 _Run_ , her body urged her, _run far away_.

Hermione looked at Draco with a nod. The other younger muggle had stepped further away, leaving them just the one in their vicinity. She was the closest.

She wasn't running. No, Hermione had to _fight_.

Draco signaled to Zabini with a quick hand gesture, and Hermione steadied herself. Zabini threw a rock into the bushes between Malfoy's and her trees.

Hermione leveled out her breathing, trying to will calmness into her body. She could do this. She had faced death eaters, dementors, trolls. She had even been petrified by a basilisk, for Merlin's sake.

But still, her hands trembled. She clenched them tighter on her long-pointed weapon. She may have been limited to one arm, but she was quick. She _would_ do this.

There was a scrape of rock and dirt, then the large thumping steps of the lumbering muggle, one of his legs at an awkward angle behind him. She could hear the wet sounds as he approached, gurgled snarls emitting from his throat.

She straightened, waiting for him to cross the part of the narrow path where she could dart out and get him from behind, her fire poker the perfect tool to impale him straight through the back of his head.

With a crack and a crunch, he passed by her, his clumsy steps barreling him through the forest as he tripped over the loose branches littering the ground. Hermione stepped out from her cover, her weapon poised as she drew it back. The man paused, his eyes darting all over the place as he listened for the source of the sound that had lured him over into the area.

Some lettering on the back of the man's shirt drew her eyes. It was one of those shirts that muggles would have made up with customized text to say what they wanted. It said, 'Grandpa Alfie' then under it, '2003 Thorne Family Camping Trip' in smaller text.

Hermione's grip faltered, the reminder of the man this dead muggle had once been to other people reminding her all too dearly of all that she had lost.

Ginny, Molly, Arthur, and _Ron_.

Tear's prickled her eyes, but she quickly pushed them down. Gritting her teeth she plunged her weapon forward, hitting the weaker portion at the back of the skull where she knew the bones fused together.

Abruptly, the muggle man's wet breaths faltered, her weapon sagging as his dead weight settled on it. Letting him fall to the ground, Hermione placed a foot on his back, pulling the weapon from him soundlessly. She stepped back and turned, meeting Malfoy's eyes as she returned to her spot, the other muggle still lingering near them in the woods.

She couldn't help but feel like she had stripped herself of a part of her soul with every kill, just like Voldemort had with his horcruxes. Even though it was hard to imagine the muggles as people when they tried to eat others alive, it didn't change that they once _were_. That they had once been alive.

The other lone muggle now paced in front of them, wet growls coming from his throat. He had massive chunks taken out all over his body, his torso a bloody mess as his arms hung limply at his sides and his legs pushed him forward. She could just make out the same red shirt the other man had been wearing, though it was too destroyed to see what it might have once said.

A pang went through her heart, wondering if the whole group in front of them had at one point been a whole family. Whatever it was that caused this, it acted quick, and it was destructive. Her mind whirled.

Was there a cure, could they fix it?

Yet, as Hermione looked down at her throbbing arm, whatever was going to cure this strange illness, it wouldn't be magic.

Magic wasn't working.

Steeling herself, Hermione darted her eyes back to Malfoy as the muggle neared where he was by the tree. The rest of the group, about ten of them, still lingered further up the river. They seemed to roam about at random - yet they all strangely stuck together.

Malfoy nodded as they saw it near the bushes to the far side of Malfoy. It would have to be his kill since they couldn't wait for Zabini to move down around the side, potentially luring it right towards Malfoy's tree.

She could see the sweat beading at Malfoy's brow, regardless of the cold air surrounding them Picking up his axe, he jumped out, abruptly bringing it down on the dead muggle's head. Like what had happened with Hermione, the muggle collapsed to the ground, and Malfoy had to pry his weapon from his head. He turned around, grimacing, and wiped his bloody axe on some leaves.

His dress shirt was tattered, new blood colored red over the older drying brown spots. Malfoy's face had taken on a grime smudged appearance, the mixture of sweat and dirt, and missed specks of blood accumulating there, making his pale grey eyes stand out as he moved back towards her in the shadows. He leaned against the tree she was behind, sighing deeply.

Behind them, Zabini moved up. His usually tightly trimmed thick dark hair had taken on a wild and dishelved appearance, his neat hairline starting to grow in. His dark shirt camouflaged the blood splatters that covered him, the only evidence visible on his muscled forearms where he had rolled up his shirt, and a speck of blood on his jaw that he had missed when trying to wipe it off.

Hermione turned her eyes away, wondering if it was Parkinson's blood that covered him.

"What now?" Zabini whispered as they huddled together, looking at the group ahead of them.

Malfoy's eyes were hard as he turned to them. Hermione could tell he still wished to run as they looked at the small undead horde they still had to get through. All just for some sense of perceived safety.

But, something in his eyes wavered, keeping him there by their side.

He might have been impulsive and self-serving, but even he knew his odds were better together than apart.

"We wait," he replied, his voice low. He ran a hand through his dirty platinum hair. "We wait and hope a few more fall back. When they do, we take them. In the meantime, we will follow them at a distance."

Zabini eyed him for a moment, but if he had any better ideas he kept them to himself. He seemed more than willing to let either Malfoy or herself lead them, as he complied and followed along.

Had Hermione not been so caught up in the tension and anxiety of the moment, only the thoughts of her own survival on her mind, she might have found it funny that she was stuck there relying in two Slytherins to watch her back. It had only been a handful of years since they had been calling her 'mudblood', and fighting for a different side in the Wizarding War.

Unconsciously, Hermione scratched her scar and pulled her dark cloak tighter. Unlike the two men she had been lucky enough to be warmly dressed when the chaos erupted in the Leaky Cauldron and the world spiraled out of control around them.

Zabini moved up to her other side, looking around the tree at the muggles.

And they waited.

The sky was dark, the shadows reaching up around them as Zabini pulled his knife out of a young woman's skull. They had killed five more of the wandering muggles as the day had progressed, waiting patiently for one to leave the majority of the group, then having one of them strike out and kill the one that had wandered off.

So far, the plan was working.

However, the last time Hermione had been the one to take the kill, it hadn't gone well. The young muggle had noticed her before she could strike, coming at her bad side where he arm was slinged. She had managed to get her poker through his chest, using it as leverage to keep him off her. The commotion had caught the attention of another larger male muggle, who had come barreling towards her before she could complete her kill.

Luckily, Malfoy had been quick, sneaking out while the dead muggle was focused and Hermione, taking him from behind with his axe. Zabini had then come and finished off the younger boy she was struggling with, using his long knife to stab him through the skull where she had him pinned to the ground.

Now, it was her turn to go again, as another muggle branched off from the group, the darkness making it harder for them to see by as the dark trees around them cut off what little light remained in the sky through the heavy clouds. She could still make out six in the main group of them. Still twice their odds, but better.

She readied herself, but before she could move out from where they hid, Malfoy was already out, swinging his axe and taking the muggle straight on. It was over in a matter of seconds, Hermione just getting up to her feet as he turned back to them.

Malfoy was silent, his eyes flickering to their curious gazes.

Nostrils flaring, Hermione joined them as they moved up, finding another copse of trees to hide behind as they watched the muggles along the river.

Hermione turned to Malfoy, the question in her eyes even as her lips remained firmly pressed together. She already knew why he had done it. She put them in danger, she was the weaker link.

He shook his head, then whispered softly. "It's best you stay back unless needed."

Hermione ground her teeth but nodded. She might not have liked taking orders from Malfoy, but she couldn't let it get personal right now. She was at a disadvantage with only one working arm. She had to accept that staying back was better not only for her survival but for _all_ of theirs.

She could barely take on one of them right now, nevermind a whole group.

Instead of just one, two muggles now fell from the group, staying close together as they snarled and gurgled. One was female, her head a red mess of blood and cracked skull, the other a man around the same age, his body riddled with what looked deep gouges in his chest and blood soaking his chin and neck. Curiosity tickled Hermione's mind since his wounds looked different from the rest of the undead campers. She wondered how he had died, and why he now walked like the rest of them.

But, as the muggles neared where they now perched themselves behind the tree. It became apparent they were going to have to take on the two of them. The sky was darkening, they were running out of time. If they fell back now, it would only get darker, making it harder to see what was happening around them.

And, they needed to be able to see around them, or they were left vulnerable.

Malfoy and Zabini nodded at each other, then ran out. After all their kills that afternoon, they struck out with precision, already having figured out how to accomplish a silent kill on the monsters that lurked around them.

Hermione looked back out at the rest of the muggles they had to kill. Only three. They were so close now. Relief started to fill her. They were going to be safe! All they had to do was follow the river like Zabini had said, then they would be able to wash up some of the blood that covered them. They would be able to find the Quidditch stadium. Safety now lingered in her fingertips, and she had never felt like she needed it more than right then.

A crack sounded beside her as Hermione's eyes paused on the remaining muggles, her joy quickly falling away as something about the three staggering around troubled her.

Something seemed wrong.

She squinted her tired eyes, as Malfoy and Zabini turned back to her, their two kills dead on the ground.

Another larger crack sounded behind her, just to her right.

Malfoy's eyes landed on her, widening in fear.

"Hermione!" he yelled, the rest of the muggles turning toward them at the sound of his voice.

That's when she remembered, there were supposed to be _four_.


	14. Chapter 13: The Stadium

**Chapter 13**

Draco felt frozen in time as he saw the female muggle stumble up behind Hermione, grasping her by her bad shoulder, its jaws snapping as it made to bite into the unprepared Gryffindor's neck.

Draco and Hermione had been through so much in so little time, the thought of her dying too was just too much for him to bear. It was the last straw. It signified that there may not actually be hope after all.

"Malfoy! Pay attention, will you?"

He couldn't look away, he stepped towards Hermione, but he felt Zabini's steel-like grip land on his arm, holding him back. "Seriously, are you daft? There's three of them coming. Fucking turn around, will you?!"

But Zabini's words fell on deaf ears as Draco saw Hermione turn just as the woman was about to bit into her, kicking out with her leg to make up for her bad arm. She hit the dead muggle, who stumbled, off balance, giving Hermione time to grasp her long fire poker, stabbing it through the muggles head without another moment's hesitation.

Draco let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He should have known that she would find a way to save herself.

She always did.

"Bloody hell, Malfoy."

Shaking himself to attention, Draco turned around, just in time to see three more muggles bearing down on them. He heard footsteps behind them.

Sparing a glance to the side he saw dirty brown curls splattered with blood. Her chest rising with her rapid breaths were the only indication of her fear as Hermione stepped up beside them, ready to take on the last three of the muggles they had to kill.

"Didn't expect you to make it out of that one, Granger," Zabini grunted from Draco's left. Zabini shot him a glance, his cheek twitching. "Neither of us did."

Hermione exhaled shortly. "Would have been unfortunate for you two if I didn't."

"How are we going to take on these blokes?" Draco asked, changing the subject to more pressing matters.

Zabini lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, so now he's paying attention," Draco just barely heard him mutter.

"Get them before they get you," Hermione replied, before stepping forward, her fire poker raised. It was almost completely dark, the moonlight glowing down upon them from the parting in the trees as they stood in a small clearing, dead leaves gathering under their feet.

Draco blinked rapidly watching how Hermione boldly rushed into harm's way. He was in awe of how she had almost died moments before yet she was still fighting like nothing had happened.

With a deep inhale he stepped forward, his arm raised. He gripped his newest weapon in his hand. An axe, a tool he had never even used before that day. So much had changed, so much was changing.

His wand felt like a fragile empty stick as it stuck into his side.

A male muggle was coming right at him, his eyes darting around, seeming to glow in the bright moonlight as it caught on the glistening dried patches of blood smeared across his broken jaw. With a gurgling snarl, the dead man was on him, trying to chomp down on his outstretched arm. With his other free hand, he punched it in the side of its head, pushing him to the side, so that he could bring his axe down on its head.

Draco's heart was beating quickly in his chest as he raised his eyes. Hermione was standing watching as Zabini stabbed his knife through the eyeball of a particularly large muggle missing an arm, a dead man already laying at her feet.

It seemed his comment about her staying back before had only made her more determined to prove her worth, and Draco found himself eating his words as her hard brown eyes met his. Of all of them, she was probably the only one who _could_ survive on her own.

He needed her. Draco knew magic, and quite well at that. Back at Hogwarts, he was the only one that came close to her in grades. However, she also knew other things. Hermione knew muggle things.

And, right now they were basically muggles.

"Well, let's be off then. We should try to get out of these trees before it gets too dark," Draco said, looking away from Hermione.

"I agree, but I could really use a bath in that river over there," Zabini interjected. "I'm covered in blood and guts. Bloody smell too."

Hermione rolled her eyes and turned, walking ahead of them. "Priorities, Zabini. Hell, maybe if you smell like one of them you can blend right on into the whole lot and they won't try to eat you."

Zabini turned his lips down in disgust at the suggestion.

Draco snorted, unable to help it, feeling a realize of tension. He started following after Hermione as she started to pick her way over the large rocks and fallen tree limbs that littered the forest floor.

They continued on in near silence, allowing themselves a moment to stop at the river to fill up their water bottles with some fresh water. Draco bent down and washed off his face, his hands coming away with flecks of dried brown blood, the cool water jolting through his system.

He took in a deep breath and straightened. He could just make out the glimmer of his reflection in the slow moving water, his hair unkempt around his face, his features drawn and showing the exhaustion that was weighing heavy down on him.

The bones in his legs throbbed, making his limp more prominent. His muscles were sore from constantly being on the move with no rest, and his head was aching after being knocked out in the fall from the broom. On top of that, his vision slightly was blurry. Draco closed and opened his eyes, willing them to work.

He looked over to Hermione, finding his eyes unwillingly drawn to her. She had aged elegantly since Hogwarts, her neck long as she pulled the mess of her curls to the side to splash water on it, washing away the blood. The droplets of water glistened on her skin in the glow of the moonlight, which now gleamed down upon them, darkness having fallen around them.

After allowing themselves a moment they all silently stood and moved on.

#

Seconds had turned to minutes, and minutes had turned to hours as they walked through the dark forest on the moor. They were deep in the shadowy trees after what felt like several hours, no break in sight.

"How much longer?" Zabini asked from behind Draco, the other Slytherin having fallen behind them several paces as Draco walked up alongside Hermione.

"Hell, if I know, Zabini," Draco retorted shortly. His head was pounding, the fuzziness at the edges of his vision more than just tiredness. He kept it to himself, as much as he wanted to complain. They all had their injuries, and they were all tired.

Draco really wished he still had his Thunderbolt.

"It's been about six miles of walking."

Draco looked at Hermione his eyebrows furrowed. It felt closer to sixty. "We have to be close to something other than trees."

"Well, it's just as well, in this dark. We have no idea what is on the other side. There could be a farm with more of... _those,_ " Hermione reasoned.

Draco pressed his lips into a frown. Zabini had said he hadn't seen anymore other than the group of them they had already killed, and he hoped the muggle-wards around the Quidditch pitch kept everyone away from the area at least prior the strange infection occurring.

"I didn't see anything when I was up there, but it sure didn't seem this far away while up in the sky," Zabini said from behind them. "We have to be close now."

No sooner had Zabini stopped talking, Draco saw a glimmer of pale light ahead. It appeared like a beacon after so much time spent in darkness. Relief flooded Draco as he quickened his pace, ignoring the pain that had been growing in his leg.

"Look there, ahead, I think we're finally there."

He felt a hand land on his arm and gently tug him, slowing him down. Draco looked back confused.

Hermione's eyes were slightly wide. She shook her head. "Don't go on rushing ahead like a fool. Let's be quiet and stay as a group."

Draco pulled his arm out of her grasp with a frown, but proceeded on with caution, both of them pausing so Zabini could catch up. He reached them, the rustling leaves the only indication he was still there as he moved out of the darkness of the forest to their side.

He lifted a brow, shooting Draco a confused look, the expression nearly missed in the shadows. But, the other Slytherin kept his mouth shut as they quietly edged closer to the treeline.

As the clearing came into sight, Draco felt like jumping with joy. On one side he could see the rolling moorland where they had camped during the Wold Cup, and on the other was a small line of trees surrounding the rising structure of what he recognized as the stadium.

"Looks all clear to me."

Hermione looked over at him with narrowed eyes. "Yes... seems so."

She didn't sound relieved. A hint of worry still edged her voice, but Draco chose to ignore it.

They left the dense forest behind them, picking their way over the uneven ground towards the trees, eventually making their way to the stadium's high walls. It was dark, though not as dark as it had been in the forest near the river. Draco felt a smile pulling at his lips.

Safety. To him, the stadium represented some form of safety - structure. A place they could gather their things and regroup before they had to face the realities of everything happening around them.

Grinning he shot a look back at Zabini and Hermione. However, both of them didn't seem to share his good mood. Hermione still looked wary, her eyes peering about them into the trees, and Zabini just looked exhausted, his chest rising with his rapid breaths.

"Well, I'm going in. You two can linger on out her if you wish."

Draco turned, seeing an opening ahead of them where he could enter the stadium, the long stacked staircases taking him to the upper stands. He walked a few steps forward, Hermione and Zabini right behind him.

However, he only got a few paces forwards before he felt a hard pull at his ankle, his legs falling out from under him as netting gathered around him and the others, throwing him into Zabini, Hermione's leg narrowly missing his face as they were lifted high into the air.


	15. Chapter 14: Looney

**Chapter 14**

Hermione twisted her head, her body contorted painfully as she pressed up against Malfoy as her legs just narrowly missed his head so that she had her back against the net behind her. Behind him was Zabini, and Malfoy's face was pained as the other Slytherin's knees jabbed him in the back.

"Strange. You don't look like the inferi," said a voice behind her. It held an airy, dream-like quality. "How did you get caught in that?"

She knew it instantly.

"Luna? Luna! It's me, Hermione! Did you set this trap?"

She heard hurried footsteps approaching. She craned her neck to look through the large holes in the net to see below her.

Luna was frowning as she looked up at her and the other two. "Ah, Draco and Blaise are with you as well. Odd. Well, I suppose I should get you down."

She heard an exasperated grunt from one of the two men and indistinguishable muttering. She was pretty certain 'Looney Luna' was mentioned, forcing her to frown. She wasn't particularily thrilled by their circumstances, but it seemed perfectly sane to set traps like the one they were in with the dead roaming around freely.

And, she was just pleased to see another friend alive. For a moment her mind wandered towards Harry, and she had to reel it back in. SHe couldn't dwell on if he was dead or alive. SHe just had to survive first.

"Please, Luna, that would be lovely."

"Well if you could please stay still, the fall might be unpleasant."

"Wh – " Malfoy started, but then his voice was ripped from him. Just as suddenly as they had been trapped, they were descending back to the ground.

With a groan, she felt the hard impact as her back met the ground, and then the heavy weight of Malfoy on top of her. He had just barely missed twisting her already broken arm. His face was inches from hers, his eyes squeezed shut like somehow not looking would have prevented their fall.

"You could have bloody warned us you were dropping us to the ground!" Zabini said in annoyance, standing up from where he was in the netting beside them, untangling him self as he grimaced. "I could have broken something!"

Hermione turned to see Luna looking at all of them curiously, her big pale blue eyes blinking less than what would be considered normal. Her usually long platinum hair was cropped around her shoulders where it sat in messy waves around her face.

"I did warn you," she answered, unconcerned about the angry Slytherin.

Malfoy finally seemed to have oriented himself, and he pushed off the ground to his knees looking back at their old classmate, his eyes slightly dazed.

Zabini was still fuming. "A second isn't considered a proper warning, you bloody lunatic!"

Even though Hermione somewhat agreed, she felt she had to diffuse the situation. "She could have left us up there, stop being an arse Zabini. We would have been sitting prey up there." SHe frowned imagining what would have happened if a group of the dead muggles wandered into the area before Luna discovered them. A chill went up her spin, feeling unprotected out in the open.

Zabini held out his arms in defeat and looked to the dark sky. "Why am I stuck with the know-it-all, do-good, Gryffindor? Why? Even Pothead would have been better."

Hermione rolled her eyes and made to get up, wincing as she tried to get her one good arm behind her to push herself up. It was harder than she had expected as she tried to roll herself over on to the side for better leverage. Her body was just too battered, weak, and sore.

She was just so tired. They all needed to get some rest.

As she struggled she looked up to see Malfoy on his feet in front of her, stretching out his had silently to her as he leaned down. Surprised, Hermione reached out and placed her hand in his, and he helped pull her to her feet. She wobbled for a moment as he watched her.

Hermione could have _sworn_ she saw concern in his eyes. But just like his visible moments of fear it was gone with a blink of her eyes.

Looking away she turned to Luna, holding out her arm and hugging her old friend. "How did you get here? Are there any others?"

Luna awkwardly patted her on the back and pulled away. Usually, Luna looked like she was lost in a dream off in a place where nargles existed. However, now her eyes were more shaded, the lines around them deeper as she pressed her lips together and shook her head.

"Just me. I set the trap for the inferi."

Hermione tilted her head. Now that they were all untangled from the netting that had trapped them, they stepped forward towards the stadium's entrance.

"Inferius," Hermione asked in confusion. She glanced towards Zabini who was lifting an eyebrow. Malfoy was silent, staring off into the tree. He seemed tense at the mere mention of the mythical monster.

"Yes. Inferius, though some would think they are zombies - but, that can't be the case. Regardless there is dark magic behind all of this."

Hermione considered Luna's theory for a moment, then frowned. "I have never read that inferi participated in cannibalism. It explains the reanimation of corpses, but inferi are only ever created by a dark wizard to serve them. Whatever this is, it seems out of control. Plus there is no known dark wizard with the ability to perform that sort of necromancy..."

Luna, glanced back at her as they walked through the dark doors into the high ranging staircases. She didn't seem convinced. "Perhaps they didn't know what they were doing and got the spell wrong."

Hermione made to open her mouth to retort how that was impossible, but then she closed it. She was finding herself suddenly not so certain it _wasn't_ possible. With the words transforming how it was, perhaps all the impossible things Luna Lovegood believed in weren't so unlikely anymore.

"Um, can some one explain what a zombie is, then?" Zabini interjected.

Hermione looked back at him in annoyance. She was starting to think Zabini only made it through Hogwarts with his charm and good looks. How he ever got into the Slug Club was a mystery to her. Perhaps his arrogant drawl was just finally starting to get on her nerves. She had gotten through her time at Hogwarts barely talking to him.

It was strange remembering him has the quiet solitary student he once was.

"Zombies are Hatian and usually are located in the southern USA," Malfoy supplied, surprising Hermione. She looked over at him and he shrugged, continuing, "they are similar to inferi, only they are greyish and often foul smelling and rotten."

"Well, can someone please tell me how these things are _not_ zombies? That description sure sounds like them," Zabini asked flabbergasted, looking around at the other three of his companions.

Hermione furrowed her brows. "I don't think they are inferi either. I mean it is possible, Luna," she said nodding to the platinum blonde. "However... even if a dark wizard did cast a spell and it backfired, it doesn't explain how its spreading. This doesn't seem like dark magic, and both zombies and inferius are a result of the dark arts."

"What do you mean?" Malfoy asked her, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"It... whatever it is that's infecting them, it acts like it is alive. Like it has a mind of its own. It spreads and infects like a muggle virus, not like a dark enchantment. Somewhat like a lycanthropy. If a werewolf bites or scratches someone, that person becomes one of them. This seems similar, only in this case, you die and rise as a blood thirsty monster with no coherent thought."

Even Luna paused in her ascent to turn back to look at her. "I never really thought of it that way. We aren't bothered by the same illnesses as muggles because there is always a spell or a potion that can fix it. You suspect this is some new strain of an illness?"

Hermione's lips quirked and she looked out into the large empty area in the middle of the stadium as the climbed higher up the stairs. "A magical illness, some blend of magic and muggle-like virus. Even if there was a spell that could fix this one, I'm not sure it would work." She looked back catching Malfoy's eye. She could tell he understood her meaning as she saw a flicker of fear pass over his face. "Magic isn't working, and I'm not all to sure potion making would either. At least there is Wolfsbane Potion for a werewolf to keep its human mind when it transforms."

They continued up the steps, a solemn silence filling the air around them. Even Luna didn't seem her usual chipper self. Hermione couldn't help but wonder what her story was. How did she get to be there in the stadium, all alone?

Hermione glanced up as Luna veered off one of one of the landings, leading them along the stands to where Hermione could see a clearing of seats in the distance. There she saw an enchanted wizard tent set up there, along with a small campsite. Internally she cringed. She was pretty sure they all had enough of campers.

The tall stands surrounded them all sides, making a small safe haven around them. Even if one or two of the walking dead managed to find its way inside, it had a vast amount of the stadium to get through before it got to them.

"I have traps at all entrances, though I will have to go down and reset the one you got caught in. I often go around during the day, to make sure there's none inside though, just to be safe. Not much else to do anyway," Luna informed them.

Hermione shook her head. She had been through so much, but not for the first time she found herself thankful she hadn't been alone. Without Malfoy, and even Zabini, she wasn't so sure she would have been able to handle it all.

Luna walked up, opening the door to her tent. Hermione found herself surprised that when she looked in and saw that the insides were still abnormally large. She glanced around curiously until her eyes set on a rather cozy looking cushioned couch. Hermione could not wait to sink into it.

"It seemed the magic stored inside objects hasn't been affected." Luna looked around her tent as if deep in thought. "It only seems to be us."

They all turned to her. "So, you have noticed as well? That magic... isn't working," Malfoy asked.

"Of course. I can't even set a fire. I was never shown how to do it the muggle way." Luna moved into the small kitchen, where Hermione noticed it was littered with small opened cans which were randomly placed around. She didn't have the energy to be bothered by Luna's untidiness.

"I'm sorry I can't offer you tea," Luna added.

Hermione felt three sets of eyes land on her and looked around at the three of them in annoyance. She just wanted to rest.

"Yes. I know how to set a bloody fire."


	16. Chapter 15: Stories

**Chapter 15**

Draco sat next to a simple fire set outside the bizarre Lovegood's wizarding tent. He had a small cup of freshly brewed tea nestled in his hands, heating him so the chilly October air didn't settle too deep. Lovegood had given them some fruit, the last of her stores. She said they might as well eat them up before they all went bad. On the horizon, the first glimmer of daylight started to show as the night sky started to lighten. He could not wait to curl up on whatever surface he could find and finally sleep.

Hermione's brown eyes were lit amber as she stared into the flames, her curly hair was a wild mess around her head, her cloak tattered and blood stained from their long day's trials. Around her neck, her arm was hanging in a makeshift sling, the ripped shirt that made it up fraying at the edges. Draco felt a small sliver of guilt nag at him as he eyed her broken arm.

Draco knew he should try to mend it. He owed her. If she hadn't nearly spent herself trying to heal his leg, he would have been long dead by now. Perhaps tomorrow after he had gotten some rest. Right now, if there was any magic left in him it wouldn't do anyone any good. He was too tired.

The mental picture of his own face with dead eyes dragging his broken leg behind him as he chased after Hermione and Zabini flashed before his eyes, making him shudder.

Dying was terrifying enough, but dying and turning into one of _them_? That was a nightmare Draco didn't want to have to face. But, if the world continued to stay as it was, if the cure or fix for this mysterious illness - as Hermione put it - was never found, it was just a matter of time until they all turned into the strange breed of inferi that now haunted them.

Across from him, Zabini was flipping his knife dangerously, twirling it around his finger's in a way that made Draco cringe to watch. One wrong move and he could lose a digit altogether.

To Draco's left sat Luna, her pale blonde hair nearly glowing under the last rays of moonlight. She looked content as she sipped her tea as if sitting around the fire in the abandoned Quidditch Stadium with _Merlin_ knows what surrounding them, didn't phase her.

He could no longer contain his curiosity. "So, Lovegood. What happened to you?"

Her eyes slowly moved up to his from where they had been enraptured with her tea. She blinked at him slowly. "Nothing really. I just arrived here with the portkey my father gave me." She looked off over the fire to where an old beat up boot sat. Likely the portkey she spoke of. "He and Rolf were supposed to join me, but they haven't come yet."

Draco cringed, already regretting asking the question. It was rumored the grandson of Newt Scamander - Rolf Scamander, and Lovegood were dating. Draco had always found the pairing to be a rather strangely perfect match for how unique the two individuals were. However, Scamander not showing up along with Lovegood's father when they said they would likely didn't mean anything good.

"I'm sorry," Draco muttered.

Lovegood tilted her head, the Ravenclaw's expression unchanging. "Why would you be? They said they would come but never gave me an exact time. No point in giving up yet."

Zabini piped up. "So why did you think those things were inferi?"

Lovegood's eyes returned to her tea as she took a long sip. Hermione continued to stare into the flames, and Draco found himself wondering if he was going to fall headfirst into the fire. Draco started to frown with concern. They all needed to go to bed.

After a moment, Lovegood simply shrugged. "They are the only creatures I could think of that seemed to explain them. Though, after what Hermione said I'm not so sure anymore. They are similar, but not quite the same."

Draco couldn't hide his surprise, Lovegood believed in many abnormal and nonexistent things, but even she was stumped when it came to properly explaining the reanimated corpses they now had to deal with.

Hermione had perked up, pulling herself out of dangers way at the sound of her name. "It's hard to be sure really. I think I need more time to think about it. I'm exhausted, and I can't think straight."

Draco nodded his agreement.

Lovegood was looking back at all of them with her strange unblinking eyes. "May I ask what brought you three here? It is a bit unusual to see you three together."

Zabini snorted. "Tell me about it."

Draco started with a half shrug. "Me, Nott, Parkinson, and Zabini had been catching up over a few drinks in London. I'm usually up at my family's estate, and I don't see them all too much these days." Though, after spending an extended period of time with Zabini, he was starting to remember why that was. "We were just gathering back at the Leaky Cauldron where we had some rooms to stay the night in when those _things_ came along. A whole lot of them. It was madness. Barely made it out."

Zabini stopped what he was doing with his knife to shoot Draco a tight look. " _Some_ of us more than others."

Draco returned his glare with a steady gaze. He still didn't regret his decision, even if things for him and Hermione hadn't gone that well afterward. Going back for Zabini, at least one of them could have died. There was a whole bunch of dead things outside the door of the room, and they could have come bursting through at any moment. Taking Granger with him had also been the smarter decision.

Now was not the time to think with his heart, he had to think with his head. He had to survive.

Lovegood, looked to Hermione, himself then Zabini. "I suppose Nott and Parkinson didn't make it then."

Zabini stabbed his knife down, piercing it through an apple and bringing it up to his mouth for a bite. "Both turned, both dead." He looked up again at Draco with his dark eyes. He may not have spoken much about what transpired between them back in London, but it was clear that didn't mean Zabini had forgotten. "I had to bash in her head you know. Kill her with my bare hands as she tried to bite them off."

Hermione sighed deeply. "Knock it off you two. It over now, we all survived."

Zanini laughed hoarsely. "You think you can tell me what to do, Gryffindor bitch? What, you have a bit of experience being a muggle, and suddenly you can just pick and chose when and where we risk our necks next?" Zabini spat. "You don't bloody know everything."

Draco rose to his feet, the remainder of his tea clattering to the ground as he just barely avoided smashing Lovegood's cheap mug. "Seriously, cut it out Zabini. We are all tired, and it was me who left you behind, not her. She wanted us to go back but I wouldn't."

Zabini's eyes darkened as he looked back to his apple, taking another big bite. "Whatever, I'm done with the whole lot of you. Once everything is clear I'm out of here." He stood throwing his apple core into the flames, and walked off, slapping the tent's flaps behind him.

"Not very pleasant, is he?" Lovegood interjected, returning Draco's attention to her. He settled back down on the piece of the bench he was sitting on now that Zabini was out of sight.

Draco let out a heavy exhale. "He isn't making the case for why I should have gone back for him very strong, no."

Lovegood tilted her head at him. "You seem different. Good different, like you have grown up since Hogwarts."

Draco blinked rapidly and cleared his throat feeling unnerved by Lovegood's bluntness. "Well, uh. Right then. Sure."

Hermione laughed softly. "Nah, he's still an arse, he's just gotten better at hiding it."

Draco snapped his eyes to her, where she was smirking uncharacteristically into her tea. He faltered for a moment, it was the closest she had been to smiling since he'd bumped into her just over a day before.

"Yeah, and you are still the same know-it-all I remember as well." Though, admittedly more attractive, even under the dirt and grime.

Hermione shrugged. "I've never been ashamed of that title. I loved learning about magic. Still do." She tilted her head back as she stared up at the stars as they slowly started to wink out. "I wish I could go back. Back then, before the war, before everything." Her brown eyes turned sad and distant.

Lovegood was watching her curiously. "I still don't know how you ended up with Malfoy and Zabini. I don't believe you were out with them, were you?"

Hermione's face fell as she looked back to Lovegood, her eyes darkening. "I was also at the Leaky Cauldron, though no, not with them."

Draco pressed his lips together to shut off the questions he was dying to ask. What had really happened with the Weasleys? He knew instinctively it was all connected to what he had witnessed just days later in the Leaky Cauldron.

Lovegood's eyebrows furrowed, asking the questions Draco wouldn't. "Where's Harry? Ron? I heard you two are engaged, congratulations by the way."

Hermione went silent, her eyes turning off, looking just as dead as the muggles they had killed.

Draco spoke for her, knowing at least some of the story. "Lovegood, how long have you been out here?"

"Over a week, maybe two."

His eyes widened, that was longer than he had expected. "Were you running from the dead?"

She nodded. "Yes, a few of them got into our home, father and Rolf were trying to fend them off when father threw me the portkey. We don't live far from here, so I suspect they are coming on foot since apparating seems risky right now."

Draco frowned. If the Lovegood's lived nearby, they should have gotten here by now. He didn't have the heart to dampen her optimism. Merlin knows, he needed some of it, even if it was irritating at times.

"Well, I suspect you didn't see the Daily Prophet then." He looked sidelong at Hermione, who was still unresponsive. "The Weasleys. Most of them anyway... they are all dead."

Lovegood's eyes widened, her expression quickly turning from her usually dreamy expression to a horrified one. "Oh no, I'm so sorry Hermione."

Hermione looked up at her slowly. "It's alright, you didn't know."

Draco watched her for a few long moments. "It was the dead things, wasn't it?"

Hermione was quiet for a few long seconds, then stood abruptly. "No, not _things_. They will never be things," she said softly. "But, they weren't alive either."

She closed her eyes tightly as if to try to cut off the images in her head. "I'm sorry, but do you mind if I use your couch, Luna? I'm dreadfully tired."

Lovegood nodded, sympathy in her pale eyes. "Of course, Hermione. Good night."

Draco watched Hermione walk back into the tent, feeling like he could see the ghosts haunting her as she went. Based on what she had said, he was of the belief that the Weasley's hadn't been attacked by any dead muggles or wizards.

No, the Weasley's had been attacked by each other.

Not for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, Draco found himself admiring Hermione's strength. He had never been fond of the Weasleys - particularly Ron. However, that didn't mean he couldn't imagine how horrible that might have been for her to witness.

"I suppose you should get some rest yourself, you look terrible Draco," Luna said, looking over at him. "I'll take first watch, it's best now that there's several of us that we keep an eye out, just in case. It was always hard for me to sleep alone out here."

Draco stood nodding, he could only imagine what things had been like out here with no one to watch her back.

He ventured back into the tent, leaving Lovegood out alone by the fire. She had moved so her back was to the tent, and her eyes were facing outwards into the stadium.

Turning into the quiet tent, he saw Zabini nestled into one of the two beds. Hermione was curled up into a small ball on the long couch, already fast asleep.

Draco saw the rest of the space down by her feet, which was more than enough room for him to fit on the other end. He collapsed opposite her, pulling a cushion up to his head. He might have thought after all the horrors he had seen earlier that day, sleep would evade him.

However, he was out in mere seconds, exhaustion overcoming even his vivid thoughts.


	17. Chapter 16: Nightmares

**Chapter 16**

Hermione sighed deeply from where she sat at the top of the stadium. They had already been here for a few weeks, and they hadn't seen any other signs of life.

They were also no closer to figuring out what was going on.

Hermione knew the one real way to properly study the effects of the illness was to capture one of the infected. She was more than certain it was some kind of magical infection, like lycanthropy. It reminded her too much of Professor Lupin.

Only, this one was much less contained, its spread rapid and disastrous. Already the world had descended into chaos, the effects of whatever this dark manifestation was sneaking up on them. One minute Hermione had been falling asleep wrapped in the arms of her fiancé, the next minute she had been backing away from his stumbling and bloody corpse.

Hermione's heart clenched, remembering just how full of life Ron had been moments before everything. She had been so happy, but so unprepared for what was to come.

Now, she was cooped up in the old world-cup stadium, hiding away with Draco, Blaise, and Luna.

Tears started to gather in her eyes as she stared out at the setting sun. It was moments like this, where she was alone that everything started to hit her. A part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. She wanted to cry for Ron, Ginny, Molly, and Arthur. Hermione wanted to let out all of her frustration and agony. She wanted to tremble and shake from the absolute terror she felt.

She was so afraid, she could barely sleep at night. The images she had seen would only sneak up to haunt her, worse than any of Hogwart's ghosts.

But, as she sat there, only a few tears fell down her face. Then they were gone, numbness overtaking them. Hermione raised a sleeve to wipe the tears away silently. It was just too much, every time. Her body was defending her because if she really gave into everything tormenting her, she would fall apart.

She didn't have time to fall apart. Not in this new world, not ever.

"Hermione? Is that you up there?"

Hermione turned to see Draco climbing up, invading her quiet space much like how he had recently invaded her life. Even though Baise and Luna were always nearby, Hermione always found herself with the fair-haired Malfoy. She figured it had something to do with how he had a hard time tolerating their other two companions.

Still, it was times like this she was struck with how much had truly changed and how quickly it had all come to be.

Draco's hair was long and fell around his face without any of its usual precise styling. His clothing had grown torn and rugged, his dress shirt no longer its original color, the dirt and blood leaving it a murky brown. He had his sleeves rolled up, showing strong arms, his past lanky build filling out into the body of a muscular man.

Hermione averted her eyes as she saw the remnants of Draco's death eater scar. It was strange, this new friendship between them. The boy that had made her life hell as a teenager was now a man she was trusting more and more with her life.

Hermione crossed her arms, remembering how the day after they found Luna he had spent himself magically trying to mend her broken arm. He had nearly healed it completely, the remainder of her trauma settling in the bone as a dull ache. It was almost like it had never happened.

But, she knew better. Even out there in the middle of the moor, she knew they would never really be safe until a cure or solution was found.

"What are you doing up here?" Draco said looking around curiously. He pursed his lips in disapproval as he looked at the ledge she was sitting on. "Not very safe, is it? I thought you hated heights.

Hermione looked out as the last rays of light fell over the distant trees. "I do, but I have learned there are things much more frightening. Sometimes we have to face our fears or we can never really learn anything."

Draco screwed up his eyebrows as he sat down beside her. He looked out at the darkening sky and sighed. "Your acting odd again. Must be a muggle thing."

Hermione rolled her eyes. Just when she thought Draco was becoming more tolerable, he always managed to backpedal and remind her of the ignorant first year he had been.

"Says the wizard who wouldn't last two days if he didn't have me around to set a muggle-fire."

Draco shot a look at her from the corner of his eye and grunted a non-response. She couldn't help but snigger at his defiant expression.

"I will have you know, I managed a small flame last night."

Hermione snorted. "I know, I saw it. It was a little spark, and it was out in seconds."

Draco frowned. "Still, I'm starting to get the hang of it."

Hermione's expression sobered. "Good. I'm not sure how much longer we can stay here."

Draco straightened, his eyes shooting out to squint into the darkness swathed trees. "Why, did you see some? Those walking dead things?"

Hermione shook her head. "No," she replied, her voice trailing off. "It's just a matter of time though. I don't feel right like we are just a couple sitting Golden Sniglets."

Draco pressed his lips together but didn't answer her. Hermione could tell he hated the idea of going out there again, but Draco couldn't deny what she was saying. They all felt it, the curiosity, the dread. The feeling that if they tried to ignore what was happening to them it would come back to haunt them.

Also, they couldn't just stay there forever. They were cut off from the world, without even a radio to try to keep themselves informed. They had no idea how the world had transformed and what else was happening out there. When they traversed from their sanctuary, what would they find? Hermione dreaded the answer.

 _And_ , Hermione thought silently, _I need to find out if Harry is okay_.

 _#_

 _Hermione was back in the Weasley's kitchen, her wand held out before her. Only this time instead of lighting up it only glowed pitifully. It flickered, the shimmering light only partially lighting up the dark kitchen in spurts and flashes._

 _However, Hermione knew this time what was coming next. She wordlessly turned it off, listening carefully._

 _A soft moan, a squelching sucking sound. The wet noise of teeth biting into raw flesh. Then, the thump and stumble of steps nearing her. All sounds she hadn't noticed before, but noises she had grown to anticipate. Why? She wasn't sure._

 _Hermione just knew she dreaded what was coming._

 _Stepping around the corner, she saw Molly's red hair. Her curls were blanketing the ground, the redness of them spreading along the carpet in rippling waves._

No _, Hermione shook her head, realization dawning on her._ That's Molly's blood.

 _The urge to run around the corner and help her was overpowering. Molly Weasley was dying! Hermione had to help her. She had always been like a mother to her, and would soon be her mother-in-law._

 _Only... something gave her pause._

Not safe.

 _How she knew that is was was uncertain, but it was enough to fill her with caution. All she could hear were Molly's torturous cries._

Thump.

 _Hermione froze, gripping her useless wand so hard she was ready to snap it in half. All she could see was red. Red Weasley hair and Molly's red blood._

 _Then he stood._

 _Only this time it wasn't Ron, it was Draco._

 _Blood stained his pale blonde hair from a ghastly wound on his shoulder, one arm hung limply at his side as he gurgled wetly in his throat. He stumbled forward, reaching out a pale arm, his dark mark swirling as if the ghostly snake were alive as it burned a fresh mark onto his arm._

 _Behind Hermione, another sound reverberated through the room. Quickly Hermione turned, only instead of Ginny she saw Blaise his dark eyes gouged out, his own knife partially impaled through his chest._

No, no, no _. Hermione shook her head, a gasping sob racking her body. They were alive, she had just seen them. Draco and Blaise weren't dead._

 _The floor boards creaked, the ghostly figure of Luna pulling out from the swarming darkness. Hermione backed up as her three companions cornered her. She searched for a weapon, watching as Molly stood up, her head sagging forward as she reached for Hermione._

 _Everywhere she looked all she saw were the dead eyes of her past and present, their pupils no longer holding their spark of life. Luna lurched forward, her leg dragging behind her. Blaise stumbled blindly, grasping at the air, closer and closer with every thundering step Hermione took. Draco hovered, growing closer with every passing moment as if time and space no longer existed for him._

 _There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide._

 _A hard hand gripped her shoulder from behind. Everything went still as Hermione slowly turned to look at the monster standing behind her._

 _Harry grinned, showing her his bloody teeth, part of his cheek missing so she could see right through to his jaw. His beautiful green eyes were dead, a murkiness glossing them over as they rose to meet hers.  
_

 _"You found me, Hermione," he said, his voice no longer sounding like his. It was garbled and wet as he took in wheezing breaths.  
_

 _She screamed._

#

"Hermione?"

A hand tentatively landed on her arm, shaking her as she slowly came back to reality. She flinched away, sobbing into the cold couch pillow as she curled around herself.

"Hermione? Are you okay?" Draco whispered. She could sense him hovering over her. He had probably felt her tossing around from the other end of the couch they shared.

Unable to respond as another chest crushing sob resonated through her body, she just shook her head. She felt the couch shift under Draco's weight as he sat down beside her with a quiet sigh.

"It was just a dream, I have them too. I keep seeing Nott back at the Leaky Cauldron," Draco confided in her quietly.

Hermione took in a deep shuddering breath. She couldn't look at him. "I didn't see them, not this time," she replied after a long pause. "I saw you."

Draco was silent for some time, the only sound the soft snores of Blaise as he continued to sleep undisturbed on the other side of the large tent. In the distance, the crack of the burning fire could be heard as Luna sat watch outside the tent.

The couch shifted, and Hermione felt strong arms encircle her, surprising her as her eyes shot open. She felt a body settle behind her, its closeness satisfying something she didn't even know she had craved until then. Human comfort, the protection of knowing she was not alone.

"I'm not going anywhere without you, Hermione. Try to get some sleep."

After a moment of lying stiffly next to Draco, she relaxed, letting his arms hold her tighter. It wasn't particularly romantic, laying next to Draco like that. But, Hermione couldn't deny that feeling another living, breathing, human-being behind gave her a small sliver of hope.

Hermione wasn't alone. She had Draco, who might have been self-serving and an arse, but was legions from who had had been before. She didn't hate him, not anymore. Hermione needed him, she realized. And, she was certain he needed her too. They might die tomorrow, but whatever came their way she wasn't facing it alone. Like Ron and Harry had once been there, she now had Draco, Luna, and even Blaise. It was strange how circumstances had pushed their odd group together.

Hermione closed her eyes, feeling how Draco's breaths leveled out as his exhales ruffled her hair. Eventually, sleep took her. Only this time, she didn't visit the Burrow for the first time in weeks.

Sometime later, Blaise came into the tent after serving his watch. He yawned, looking forward to a few more hours sleep. He moved to the couch, readying himself to wake up Draco for her turn out in the night watching for dead things they all hoped would never find them. What he saw made him stop dead in his tracks, his eyes widened in shock.

For a few moments, he stood there. Blaise could see the red puffy eyes on Granger's face. Several nights he had heard her wake up calling for one of the Weasley's. She thought she never woke them, but he knew Draco heard her every time. Blaise had already gathered what had happened at the Burrow and didn't want to imagine the horrors she had seen.

With a deep sigh, he ran a hand through his thick dark curls which were in dire need of a haircut. Blaise looked over to Luna. She had only returned from her own watch a few hours ago. Blaise could tell each night Luna sat out longer and longer than the rest of them as if she were waiting for something that was never to come.

Blaise shook his head and cursed himself for growing soft. He turned on his heel and slapped the tent flaps open as he returned to the fire. They had no idea how much they owed him for this. He settled back down on the bench and added some wood to the fire, watching it sizzle as the flame took to its newest victim.

It was going to be a long night.


End file.
